ps that was why he had not offered to go with her at once.
Yes, she believed that now. She saw her action, she saw her preceding
decision as others had seen it, as no doubt Maurice had seen it, as
perhaps even Artois had seen it. Why had she instinctively felt that
because her nature was as it was, and because she was bravely following
it, every one must understand her? Oh, to be completely understood! If
she could call Maurice back for one moment, and just make him see her
as she had been then; loyal to her friend, and through and through
passionately loyal to him! If she could! If she could!

She had left Maurice, the one being who had utterly belonged to her,
to go to Artois. She had lost the few remaining days in which she could
have been supremely happy. She had come back to have a few short hours
devoid of calm, chilled sometimes by the strangeness that had intruded
itself between her and Maurice, to have one kiss in which surely at last
misunderstanding was lost and perfect love was found. And then--that
"something" in the water! And then--the gulf.

In that gulf she had not been quite alone. The friend whom she had
carried away from Africa and death had been with her. He had been
closely in her life ever since. And now--

She heard the Marchesino's voice: "I see what he is, what he wants,
I see it all--all that is in his mind and heart. I see, I have always
seen, that he loves the Signorina, that he loves her madly."

Vere!

Hermione sickened. Emile and Vere in that relation!

The storm of anger was not spent yet. Would it ever be spent? Something
within her, the something, perhaps, that felt rejected, strove to reject
in its turn, did surely reject. Pride burned in her like a fire that
cruelly illumines night, shining upon the destruction it is compassing.

The terrible sense of outrage that gripped her soul and body--her body
because Vere was bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh--seemed to be
forcibly changing her nature, as cruel hands, prompted by murder in a
heart, change form, change beauty in the effort to destroy.

That evening Hermione felt herself being literally defaced by this
sensation of outrage within her, a sensation which she was powerless to
expel.

She found herself praying to God that Artois might not come to the
island that night. And yet, while she prayed, she felt that he was
coming.

She dined with Vere, in almost complete silence--trying to love this
dear child as she had alw