hout any definite intention,
she indicated to her subtle and devoted friend the only way in which he
could console her.

For once, driven by his emotion, he took that way.

He allowed Hermione to believe that he agreed with her in the conception
she had formed of her husband's love for her. It was difficult for him
to do this, for he had an almost cruel passion for truth, and generally
a clear insight into human character. Far less than many others would
have condemned did he, in his mind, condemn the man who was dead for
the sin against love that he had committed. He had understood Maurice
as Hermione had not understood him, and knowledge is full of pardon. But
though he could pardon easily he could not easily pretend. By pretending
he sinned against himself, and helped his friend some steps along the
way to peace. He thought he had helped her to go much farther along that
way than she had gone. And he thought that Vere had helped her, too.

Now the hollow mutterings of the rock in Virgil's Grotto seemed to be
in his heart, as he realized how permanent was the storm in Hermione's
nature. Something for her he had done. And something--much more, no
doubt--Vere had done. But how little it all was!

Their helplessness gave him a new understanding of woman.

Hermione had allowed him great privileges, had allowed him to protect
her, had taken his advice. After Vere was born she had wished to go back
again to Sicily. The house of the priest, where she had been so happy,
and so sad, drew her. She longed for it. She desired to make it her
home. He had fought against her in this matter, and had been aided by
Gaspare.

There had been a subtle understanding, never expressed, between the boy
and him.

Artois had played upon her intellect, had appealed, too, to her mother's
heart.

He had not urged her to try to forget, but he had urged her not morbidly
to remember, not to cherish and to foster the memory of the tragedy
which had broken her life. To go back to that tiny home, solitary in its
beautiful situation, in the changed circumstances which were hers, would
be, he told her, to court and to summon sorrow. He was even cruel to be
kind. When Hermione combated his view, assuring him that to her
Monte Amato was like a sacred place, a place hallowed by memories of
happiness, he recalled the despair in which that happiness had ended.
With all the force at his command, and it was great, he drew the picture
of the life that w