asunder as a charge of gunpowder splits
asunder a rock. The head wind rushed by, yet had never passed them, but
was forever coming furiously to meet them. On the roof of the little
cabin the rain made a noise that was no longer like the rustle of silk,
but was like the crackle of musketry.

There was something oppressive, something even almost terrible, in
being closely confined, shut in by low roof and narrow walls from such
sweeping turbulence, such a clamor of wind and water and the sky.

Hermione looked at her diamond brooch, then at her cloak.

Slowly she lifted her hand and began to button it.

Vere moved and began to button up hers. Hermione glanced at her, and
saw a watchful, shining, half-humorous, half-passionate look in her eyes
that could not be mistaken.

She dropped her hands.

"No, Vere!"

"Yes, Madre! Yes, yes, yes!"

The Marchesino stared.

"No, I did not--"

"You did! You did, Madre! It's no use! I understood directly."

She began quickly to take off her hat.

"Marchese, we are going out."

"Vere, this is absurd."

"We are going outside, Marchese. Madre wants air."

The Marchesino, accustomed only to the habits and customs of Neapolitan
women, looked frankly as if he thought Hermione mad.

"Poor Madre must have a breath of air."

"I will open the window, Signora!"

"And the rain all over her, and the thunder close above her, and the sea
in her face, the sea--the sea!"

She clapped her hands.

"Gaspare! Gaspare!"

She put her face to the glass. Gaspare, who was standing up in the
stern, with his hands holding fast to the rail that edged the cabin
roof, bent down till his brown face was on a level with hers, and his
big eyes were staring inquiringly into her eyes.

"We are coming out."

On the other side of the glass Gaspare made violently negative gestures.
One word only came to those inside the cabin through the uproar of the
elements.

"Impossible!"

"Signorina," said the Marchesino, "you cannot mean it. But you will be
washed off. And the water--you will be drowned. It cannot be."

"Marchese, look at Madre! If she stays inside another minute she will be
ill. She is stifling! Quickly! Quickly!"

The Marchesino, whose sense of humor was not of a kind to comprehend
this freak of Vere's, was for once really taken aback. There were two
sliding doors to the cabin, one opening into the bows of the launch, the
other into the stern. He got up, looking very grave and rathe