the need
of love, knew it with an intimacy that was cruel.

She came away from the window and went to the terrace. From there she
could not see the boat. Finally she went to the small pavilion that
overlooked the Saint's Pool. Leaning over the parapet, she perceived the
little white boat just starting around the cliff towards the Grotto of
Virgil. Vere was rowing. Hermione saw her thin figure, so impregnated
with the narrow charm of youth, bending backward and forward to the
oars, Emile's big form leaning against the cushions as if at ease. From
the dripping oars came twinkling lines of light, that rayed out and
spread like the opened sticks of a fan upon the sea. Hugging the shore,
the boat slipped out of sight.

"Suppose they had gone forever--gone out of my life!"

Hermione said that to herself. She fancied she still could see the faint
commotion in the water that told where the boat had passed. Now it
was turning into the Grotto of Virgil. She felt sure of that. It was
entering the shadows where she had shown to Emile not long ago the very
depths of her heart.

How could she have done that? She grew hot as she thought of it. In her
new and bitter reserve she hated to think of his possession that could
never be taken from him, the knowledge of her hidden despair, her hidden
need of love. And by that sensation of hatred of his knowledge she
measured the gulf between them. When had come the very first narrow
fissure she scarcely knew. But she knew how to-day the gulf had widened.

The permission of hers to Vere to read Emile's books! And Emile's
authority governing her child, substituted surely for hers! The gulf had
been made wider by her learning that episode; and the fact that secretly
she felt her permission ought never to have been given caused her the
more bitterness. Vere had yielded to Emile because he had been in the
right. Instinctively her child had known which of the two with whom she
had to deal was swayed by an evil mood, and which was thinking rightly,
only for her.

Could Vere see into her mother's heart?

Hermione had a moment of panic. Then she laughed at her folly.

And she thought of Peppina, of that other secret which certainly
existed, but which she had never suspected till that day.

The boat was gone, and she knew where. She went back into the house and
rang the bell. Giulia came.

"Oh, Giulia," Hermione said, "will you please ask Peppina to come to my
sitting-room. I want to speak t