nths with
Vere beside the sea. As the girl grew older she developed a passion
for the sea, and seemed to care little for the fascination of the pine
forests. Hermione, noting this, gave up going to the Abetone and took
a house by the sea for the whole summer. Two years they were at Santa
Margherita, one year at Sorrento.

Then, sailing one evening on the sea towards Bagnoli, they saw the house
on the islet beyond the Pool of San Francesco. Vere was enchanted by it.

"To live in it," she exclaimed, "would be almost like living in the
sea!"

Hermione, too, was fascinated by its situation, the loneliness, the
wildness, yet the radiant cheerfulness of it. She made inquiries, found
that it was owned by a Neapolitan who scarcely ever went there, and
eventually succeeded in getting it on a long lease. For two years now
she and Vere had spent the summer there.

Artois had noticed that since Hermione had been in the Casa del Mare
an old desire had begun to revive in her. She spoke more frequently of
Sicily. Often she stood on the rock and looked across the sea, and
he knew that she was thinking of those beloved coasts--of the Ionian
waters, of the blossoming almond-trees among the olives and the rocks,
of the scarlet geraniums glowing among the thorny cactus, of the giant
watercourses leading up into the mountains. A hunger was awake in her,
now that she had a home so near the enchanted island.

He realized it. But he was no longer much afraid. So many years had
passed that even if Hermione revisited Marechiaro he believed there
would be little or no danger now of her ever learning the truth. It had
never been known in the village, and if it had been suspected, all the
suspicions must have long ago died down. He had been successful in his
protection. He was thankful for that. It was the one thing he had been
able to do for the friend who had done so much for him.

The tragedy had occurred because of him. Because of him all knowledge
of it had been kept from Hermione, and would now be kept from her
forever--because of him and Gaspare.

This he had been able to do. But how powerless he was, and how powerless
was Vere!

Now he looked vaguely at the villas of Posilipo, and he realized this
thoroughly.

Something for her he had done, and something Vere had done. But how
little it all was!

To-day a new light had been thrown upon Hermione, and he realized what
she was as he had never realized it before. No, she was right.