n added:

"I think he has rather a hard time, do you know, Madre?"

Hermione had taken off her hat. She laid it on a table and sat down. She
was feeling tired.

"But generally he looks so gay, so strong. Don't you remember that first
day you saw him?"

"Ah--then!"

"Of course, when he had fever--"

"No, it wasn't that. Any one might be ill. I think he has things at home
to make him unhappy sometimes."

"Has he been telling you so?"

"Oh, he doesn't complain," Vere said, quickly, and almost with a touch
of heat. "A boy like that couldn't whine, you know, Madre. But one can
understand things without hearing them said. There is some trouble.
I don't know what it is exactly. But I think his step-father--his
Patrigno, as he calls him--must have got into some bother, or done
something horrible. Ruffo seemed to want to tell me, and yet not to
want to tell me. And, of course, I couldn't ask. I think he'll tell me
to-morrow, perhaps."

"Is he coming here to-morrow?"

"Oh, in summer I think he comes nearly every night."

"But you haven't said anything about him just lately."

"No. Because he hasn't landed till to-night since the night of the
storm."

"I wonder why?" said Hermione.

She was interested; but she still felt tired, and the fatigue crept into
her voice.

"So do I," Vere said. "He had a reason, I'm sure. You're tired Madre, so
I'll go to bed. Good-night."

She came to her mother and kissed her. Moved by a sudden overwhelming
impulse of tenderness, Hermione put her arms round the child's slim
body. But even as she did so she remembered Vere's secret, shared with
Emile and not with her. She could not abruptly loose her arms without
surprising her child. But they seemed to her to stiffen, against her
will, and her embrace was surely mechanical. She wondered if Vere
noticed this, but she did not look into her eyes to see.

"Good-night, Vere."

"Good-night."

Vere was at the door when Hermione remembered her two meetings of that
evening.

"By-the-way," she said, "I met the Marchesino to-night. He was at the
Scoglio di Frisio."

"Was he?"

"And afterwards on the sea I met Emile."

"Monsieur Emile! Then he isn't quite dead!"

There was a sound almost of irritation in Vere's voice.

"He has been working very hard."

"Oh, I see."

Her voice had softened.

"The Marchesino is coming here to lunch to-morrow."

"Oh, Madre!"

"Does he bore you? I had to ask him to something after accepting