et the sweet white
moon in the sky, covered the sea with her silver. Artois turned towards
the song and stood still. But Hermione, as if physically compelled
towards it, moved away down the terrace, following in the direction in
which the boat was going.

As she passed Artois saw tears running down her cheeks. And he said to
himself:

"No, I cannot tell her; I can never tell her. If she is to be told, let
Ruffo tell her. Let Ruffo make her understand. Let Ruffo lift her up
from the lie on which I have made her rest, and lead her out of prison."

As this thought came to him a deep tenderness towards Hermione flooded
his heart. He stood where he was. Far off he still heard Ruffo's voice
drifting away in the mist out to the great sea. And he saw the vague
form of Hermione leaning down over the terrace wall, towards the sea,
the song, and Ruffo.

How intensely strange, how mysterious, how subtle was the influence
housed within the body of that singing boy, that fisher-boy, which,
like an issuing fluid, or escaping vapor, or perfume, had stirred and
attracted the childish heart of Vere, had summoned and now held fast the
deep heart of Hermione.

Just then Artois felt as if in the night he was walking with the
Eternities, as if that song, now fading away across the sea, came
even from them. We do not die. For in that song to which Hermione bent
down--the dead man lived when that boy's voice sang it. In that boat,
now vanishing upon the sea, the dead man held an oar. In that warm young
heart of Ruffo the dead man moved, and spoke--spoke to his child,
Vere, whom he had never seen, spoke to his wife, Hermione, whom he had
deceived, yet whom he had loved.

Then let him--let the dead man himself--speak out of that temple which
he had created in a moment of lawless passion, out of that son whom he
had made to live by the action which had brought upon him death.

Ruffo--all was in the hands of Ruffo, to whom Hermione, weeping, bent
for consolation.

The song died away. Yet Hermione did not move, but still leaned over
the sea. She scarcely knew where she was. The soul of her, the suffering
soul, was voyaging through the mist with Ruffo, was voyaging through the
mist and through the night with--her Sicilian and all the perfect past.
It seemed to her at that moment that she had lost Vere in the dark, that
she had lost Emile in the dark, that even Gaspare was drifting from her
in a mist of secrecy which he did not intend that