eeded by a fierce, energetic impulse.

"Then," she said--"then--I'll tell you!"

Maddalena looked up.

"Yes, I'll tell you."

Hermione paused. She had begun to tremble. She put one hand down to the
back of the chair, grasping it tightly as if to steady herself.

"I'll tell you."

What? What was she going to tell?

That first evening in Sicily--just before they went in to bed--Maurice
had looked down over the terrace wall to the sea. He had seen a
light--far down by the sea.

It was the light in the House of the Sirens.

"You once lived in Sicily. You once lived in the Casa delle Sirene,
beyond the old wall, beyond the inlet. You were there when we were in
Sicily, when Gaspare was with us as our servant."

Maddalena's lips parted. Her mouth began to gape. It was obvious that
she was afraid.

"You--you knew Gaspare. You knew--you knew my husband, the Signore of
the Casa del Prete on Monte Amato. You knew him. Do you remember?"

Maddalena only stared up at her with a sort of heavy apprehension,
sitting widely in her chair, with her feet apart and her hands always
resting on her knees.

"It was in the summer-time--" She was again in Sicily. She was tracing
out a story. It was almost as if she saw words and read them from a
book. "There were no forestieri in Sicily. They had all gone. Only we
were there--" An expression so faint that it was like a fleeting shadow
passed over Maddalena's face, the fleeting shadow of something that
denied. "Ah, yes! Till I went away, you mean! I went to Africa. Did you
know it then? But before I went--before--" She was thinking, she was
burrowing deep down into the past, stirring the heap of memories that
lay like drifted leaves. "They used to go--at least they went once--down
to the sea. One night they went to the fishing. And they slept out all
night. They slept in the caves. Ah, you know that? You remember that
night!"

The trembling that shook her body was reflected in her voice, which
became tremulous. She heard the tram-bell ringing. She saw the green
parrot listening on its board. And yet she was in Sicily, and saw the
line of the coast between Messina and Cattaro, the Isle of the Sirens,
the lakelike sea of the inlet between it and the shore.

"I see that you remember it. You saw them there. They--they didn't tell
me!"

As she said the last words she felt that she was entering the great
darkness. Maurice and Gaspare--she had trusted them with all her nature.
And t