ything to
her. The fear that cringed was suddenly replaced by the fear that rushes
forward blindly, intent only on getting rid of uncertainty even at the
cost of death. Soldiers know that fear. It has given men to bayonet
points.

Now it increased rapidly within Hermione. She was devoured by a terror
that was acutely nervous, that gnawed her body as well as her soul.

Gaspare had known Ruffo's mother in Sicily. And Maurice--he had known
Ruffo's mother. He must have known her. But when? How had he got to know
her?

Hermione stood still.

"It must have been when I was in Africa!"

A hundred details of her husband's conduct, from the moment of his
return from the fair till the last kiss he had given her before he went
away down the side of Monte Amato, flashed through her mind. And each
one seemed to burn her mind as a spark, touching flesh, burns the flesh.

"It was when I was in Africa!"

She went to the window and leaned out into the night over the misty sea.
Her lips moved. She was repeating to herself again and again:

"To-morrow I'll go to Mergellina! To-morrow I'll go to Mergellina!"

CHAPTER XXXV

Hermione did not sleep at all that night. When the dawn came she got up
and looked out over the sea. The mist had vanished with the darkness.
The vaporous heat was replaced by a delicate freshness that embraced the
South as dew embraces a rose. On the as yet pale waters, full of varying
shades of gray, slate color, ethereal mauve, very faint pink and white,
were dotted many fishing-boats. Hermione looked at them with her tired
eyes. Ruffo's boat was no doubt among them. There was one only a few
hundred yards beyond the rocks from which Vere sometimes bathed. Perhaps
that was his.

Ruffo's boat! Ruffo!

She put her elbows on the sill of the window and rested her face in her
hands.

Her eyes felt very dry, like sand she thought, and her mind felt dry
too, as if insomnia was withering it up. She opened her lips to breathe
in the salt freshness of the morning.

Upon Anacapri a woolly white cloud lay lightly. The distant coast, where
dreams Sorrento, was becoming clearer every moment.

Often and often in the summer-time had Hermione been invaded by the
radiant cheerfulness of the Bay of Naples. She knew no sea that had its
special gift of magical gayety and stirring hopefulness, its laughing
Pagan appeal to all the light things of the soul. It woke even the weary
heart to holiday when, in the summer, it