rtois.

"Gaspare?" she repeated, interrogatively.

"Signora!" he answered, doggedly.

He did not lift his eyes to hers.

"You have lost the Signorina?"

"Si, Signora."

He attempted no excuse, he expressed no regret.

"Gaspare!" Hermione said.

Suddenly Artois put his hand on Gaspare's shoulder. He said nothing, but
his touch told the Sicilian much--told him how he was understood, how he
was respected, by this man who had shared his silence.

"We thought they might be here," Artois said.

"They are not here."

Her voice was almost hard, almost rebuking. She was still standing in
the door-space.

"I will go back and look again, Signora."

"Si," she said.

She turned back into the room. Artois held out his hand to Gaspare:

"Signore?"

Gaspare looked surprised, hesitating, then moved. He took the
out-stretched hand, grasped it violently, and went away.

Artois shut the sitting-room door and went towards Hermione.

"You are staying?" she said.

By her intonation he could not tell whether she was glad or almost
angrily astonished.

"They may come here immediately," he said. "I wish to see Panacci--when
he comes."

She looked at him quickly.

"It must be an accident," she said. "I can't--I won't believe that--no
one could hurt Vere."

He said nothing.

"No one could hurt Vere," she repeated.

He went out on to the balcony and stood there for two or three minutes,
looking down at the sea and at the empty road. She did not follow him,
but sat down upon the sofa near the writing-table. Presently he turned
round.

"Gaspare has gone."

"It would have been better if he had never come!"

"Hermione," he said, "has it come to this, that I must defend Gaspare to
you?"

"I think Gaspare might have kept with Vere, ought to have kept with
Vere."

Artois felt a burning desire to make Hermione understand the Sicilian,
but he only said, gently:

"Some day, perhaps, you will know Gaspare's character better, you will
understand all this."

"I can't understand it now. But--oh, if Vere--No, that's impossible,
impossible!"

She spoke with intense vehemence.

"Some things cannot happen," she exclaimed, with a force that seemed to
be commanding destiny.

Artois said nothing. And his apparent calm seemed to punish her, almost
as if he struck her with a whip.

"Why don't you speak?" she said.

She felt almost confused by his silence.

He went out again to the balcony, leaned on the railing and