oving?"

"In loving passionately something that was utterly worthy to be loved."

Artois was silent. He knew Hermione's mistake. He knew what had never
been told him: that Maurice had been false to her for the love of the
peasant girl Maddalena. He knew that Maurice had been done to death by
the betrayed girl's father, Salvatore. And Gaspare knew these things,
too. But through all these years these two men had so respected silence,
the nobility of it, the grand necessity of it in certain circumstances
of life, that they had never spoken to each other of the black truth
known to them both. Indeed, Artois believed that even now, after more
than sixteen years, if he ventured one word against the dead man Gaspare
would be ready to fly at his throat in defence of the loved Padrone. For
this divined and persistent loyalty Artois had a sensation of absolute
love. Between him and Gaspare there must always be the barrier of a
great and mutual reserve. Yet that very reserve, because there was
something truly delicate, and truly noble in it, was as a link of steel
between them. They were watchdogs of Hermione. They had been watchdogs
through all these years, guarding her from the knowledge of a truth. And
so well had they done her service that now to-day she was able to say,
with clasped hands and the light of passion in her eyes:

"Something that was utterly worthy to be loved."

When Artois spoke again he said:

"And that force cannot be fully used in loving Vere?"

"No, Emile. Is that very horrible, very unnatural?"

"Why should it be?"

"I have tried--I have tried for years, Emile, to make Vere enough. I
have even been false with myself. I have said to myself that she was
enough. I did that after I knew that I could never produce work of any
value. When Vere was a baby I lived only for her. Again, when she was
beginning to grow up, I tried to live, I did live only for her. And I
remember I used to say, I kept on saying to myself, 'This is enough for
me. I do not need any more than this. I have had my life. I am now
a middle-aged woman. I must live in my child. This will be my
satisfaction. This is my satisfaction. This is using rightly and
naturally all that force I feel within me.' I kept on saying this. But
there is something within one which rises up and defies a lie--however
beautiful the lie is, however noble it is. And I think even a lie can
sometimes be both. Don't you, Emile?"

It almost seemed to him for a m