iedly. "But--"

"It's all right, Madre. Well, I've finished. I think I shall go out a
little in my boat."

She went away, half humming, half singing the tune of the Mergellina
song.

Hermione put down her cup. She had not finished her coffee, but she knew
she could not finish it. Life seemed at that moment utterly intolerable
to her. She felt desperate, as a nature does that is forced back upon
itself by circumstances, that is forced to be, or to appear to be,
traitor to itself. And in her desperation action presented itself to her
as imperatively necessary--necessary as air is to one suffocating.

She got up. She would start at once for Mergellina. As she went
up-stairs she remembered that she did not know where Ruffo's mother
lived, what she was like, even what her name was. The boy had always
spoken of her as "Mia Mamma." They dwelt at Mergellina. That was all she
knew.

She did not choose to ask Gaspare anything. She would go alone, and find
out somehow for herself where Ruffo lived. She would ask the fishermen.
Or perhaps she would come across Ruffo. Probably he had gone home by
this time from the fishing.

Quickly, energetically she got ready.

Just before she left her room she saw Vere pass slowly by upon the
sea, rowing a little way out alone, as she often did in the calm summer
weather. Vere had a book, and almost directly she laid the oars in their
places side by side, went into the stern, sat down under the awning,
and began--apparently--to read. Hermione watched her for two or three
minutes. She looked very lonely; and moved by an impulse to try to
erase the impression made on her by the abrupt exclamation at the
breakfast-table, the mother leaned out and hailed the child.

"Good-bye, Vere! I am just starting!" she cried out, trying to make her
voice sound cheerful and ordinary.

Vere looked up for a second.

"Good-bye!"

She bent her head and returned to her book.

Hermione felt chilled.

She went down and met Giulia in the passage.

"Giulia, is Gaspare anywhere about? I want to cross to the mainland. I
am going to take the tram."

"Signora, are you going to Naples? Maria says--"

"I can't do any commissions, because I shall probably not go beyond
Mergellina. Find Gaspare, will you?"

Giulia went away and Hermione descended to the Saint's Pool. She waited
there two or three minutes. Then Gaspare appeared above.

"You want the boat, Signora?"

"Yes, Gaspare."

He leaped down the s