eful gesture.

Was not that, too, Maurice?

"A rivederci, Signora."

He was gone.

Hermione stood alone in the fatal night. She had forgotten Vere. She had
forgotten Artois. The words of Ruffo had led her on another step in the
journey it was ordained that she should make. She felt the under-things.
It seemed to her that she heard in the night the dull murmuring of the
undercurrents that carry through wayward, or terrible, channels the
wind-driven bark of life. What could it mean, this encounter just
described to her: this pain, this emotion of a woman, her strange
question to her son? And Gaspare's agitation, his pallor, his
"mysterious" face, the colloquy that Ruffo was not allowed to hear!

What did it mean? That woman's question--that question!

"What is it? What am I near?" Ruffo's mother knew Gaspare, must have
known him intimately in the past. When? Surely long ago in Sicily; for
Ruffo was sixteen, and Hermione felt sure--knew, in fact--that till they
came to the island Gaspare had never seen Ruffo.

That woman's question!

Hermione went slowly to the bench and sat down by the edge of the cliff.

What could it possibly mean?

Could it mean that this woman, Ruffo's mother, had once known Maurice,
known him well enough to see in her son the resemblance to him?

But then--

Hermione, as sometimes happened, having reached truth instinctively
and with a sure swiftness, turned to retreat from it. She had lost
confidence in herself. She feared her own impulses. Now, abruptly,
she told herself that this idea was wholly extravagant. Ruffo probably
resembled some one else whom his mother and Gaspare knew. That was far
more likely. That must be the truth.

But again she seemed to hear in the night the dull murmurings of those
undercurrents. And many, many times she recurred mentally to that
weeping woman's question to her son--that question about Gaspare.

Gaspare--he had been strange, disturbed lately. Hermione had noticed it;
so had the servants. There had been in the Casa del Mare an oppressive
atmosphere created by the mentality of some of its inhabitants.

Even she, on that day when she had returned from Capri, had felt a
sensation of returning to meet some grievous tale.

She remembered Artois now, recalling his letter which she had found that
day.

Gaspare and Artois--did they both suspect, or both know, something which
they had been concealing from her?

Suddenly she began to feel frightened.