of Santa Lucia only a few
yards away.

"Ecco!" he exclaimed. "Ecco! But--but who is with them?"

"Only Gaspare," replied Artois.

"Gaspare! That servant who came to the Guiseppone? Oh, no doubt he has
rowed the ladies over and will return to the boat?"

"No, I think not. I think the Signora will bring him to the Carmine."

"Why?" said the Marchesino, sharply.

"Why not? He is a strong fellow, and might be useful in a crowd."

"Are we not strong? Are we not useful?"

"My dear Doro, what's the matter?"

"Niente--niente!"

He tugged at his mustaches.

"Only I think the Signora might trust to us."

"Tell her so, if you like. Here she is."

At this moment the door opened and Hermione came in, followed by Vere.

As Artois went to welcome them he was aware of a strange mixture of
sensations, which made these two dear and close friends, these intimates
of his life, seem almost new. He was acutely conscious of the mist of
which Hermione had thought. He wondered about her, as she about him. He
saw again that face in the night under the trellis. He heard the voice
that had called to him and Vere in the garden. And he knew that enmity,
mysterious yet definite, might arise even between Hermione and him; that
even they two--inexorably under the law that has made all human beings
separate entities, and incapable of perfect fusion--might be victims
of misunderstanding, of ignorance of the absolute truth of personality.
Even now he was companioned by the sudden and horrible doubt which had
attacked him in the garden: that perhaps she had been always playing
a part when she had seemed to be deeply interested in his work, that
perhaps there was within her some one whom he did not know, had never
even caught a glimpse of until lately, once when she was in the tram
going to the Scoglio di Frisio, and once the last time they had met. And
yet this was the woman who had nursed him in Africa--and this was the
woman against whose impulsive actions he had had the instinct to protect
Vere--the Hermione Delarey whom he had known for so many years.

Never before had he looked at Hermione quite as he looked at her
to-night. His sense of her strangeness woke up in him something that was
ill at ease, doubtful, almost even suspicious, but also something that
was quivering with interest.

For years this woman had been to him "dear Hermione," "ma pauvre amie,"
comrade, sympathizer, nurse, mother of Vere.

Now--what else was she? A hu