oment that she knew his lie and
Gaspare's.

"Yes," he said. "I do think so."

"Well, that lie of mine--it was defied. And it had no more courage."

"I want you to tell me something," he said, quietly. "I want you to tell
me what has happened to-day."

"To-day?"

"Yes. Something has happened either to-day or very recently--I am
sure of it--that has stirred up within you this feeling of acute
dissatisfaction. It was always there. But something has called it into
the open. What has done that?"

Hermione hesitated.

"Perhaps you don't know," he said.

"I was wondering--yes, I do know. I must be truthful with myself--with
you. I do know. But it seems so strange, so almost inexplicable, and
even rather absurd."

"Truth often seems absurd."

"It was that boy, that diver for _frutti di mare_--Ruffo."

"The boy with the Arab eyes?"

"Yes. Of course I have seen many boys full of life and gayety and music.
There are so many in Italy. But--well, I don't know--perhaps it was
partly Vere."

"How do you mean?"

"Vere was so interested in him. It may have been that. Or perhaps it
was something in his look and in his voice when he was singing. I don't
really know what it was. But that boy made me feel--more horribly than
I have ever felt before--that Vere is not enough. Emile, there is some
hunger, so persistent, so peculiar, so intense, that one feels as if it
must be satisfied eventually, as if it were impossible for it not to be
satisfied. I think that human hunger for immortal life is like that, and
I think my hunger for a son is like that. I know my hunger can never
be satisfied. And yet it lives on in me just as if it knew more than
I know, as if it knew that it could and must. After all these years I
can't, no, I can't reconcile myself to the fact that Maurice was taken
from me so utterly, that he died without stamping himself upon a son. It
seems as if it couldn't be. And I feel to-day that I cannot bear that it
is."

There were tears standing in her eyes. She had spoken with a force of
feeling, with a depth of sincerity, that startled Artois, intimately as
he knew her. Till this moment he had not quite realized the wonderful
persistence of love in the hearts of certain women, and not only the
persistence of love's existence, but of its existence undiminished,
unabated by time.

"How am I to bear it?" she said, as he did not speak.

"I cannot tell. I am not worthy to know. And besides, I must say to you,