dow-spaces like eye-sockets, sightless, staring, horribly
suggestive of ruin and despair.

She was like that. Gaspare was looking at her. Gaspare must know that
she was like that.

But she was a fanatic just then, and she smiled at him with a resolution
that had in it something almost brutal, something the opposite of what
she was, of the sum of her.

"I forgot the time. It is so lovely to-day. It was so gay at
Mergellina."

"Si?"

"I sat for a long time watching the boats, and the boys bathing, and
listening to the music. They sang 'A Mergellina.'"

"Si?"

She smiled again.

"And I went to visit Ruffo's mother."

Gaspare made no response. He looked down now as he plied his oars.

"She seems a nice woman. I--I dare say she was quite pretty once."

The voice that was speaking now was the voice of a fanatic.

"I am sure she must have been pretty."

"Chi lo sa?"

"If one looks carefully one can see the traces. But, of course, now--"

She stopped abruptly. It was impossible to her to go on. She was
passionately trying to imagine what that spreading, graceless woman,
with her fat hands resting on her knees set wide apart, was like
once--was like nearly seventeen years ago. Was she ever pretty,
beautiful? Never could she have been intelligent--never, never. Then
she must have been beautiful. For otherwise--Hermione's drawn face was
flooded with scarlet.

"If--if it's easier to you to row standing up, Gaspare," she almost
stammered, "never mind about sitting down."

"I think it is easier, Signora."

He got up, and once more turned his back upon her.

They did not speak again until they reached the island.

Hermione watched his strong body swinging to and fro with every stroke,
and wondered if he felt the terrible change in her feeling for him--a
change that a few hours ago she would have thought utterly impossible.

She wondered if Gaspare knew that she was hating him.

He was alive and, therefore, to be hated. For surely we cannot hate the
dust!

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Gaspare did not offer to help Hermione out of the boat when they reached
the island. He glanced at her face, met her eyes, looked away again
immediately, and stood holding the boat while she got out. Even when she
stumbled slightly he made no movement; but he turned and gazed after
her as she went up the steps towards the house, and as he gazed his face
worked, his lips muttered words, and his eyes, become almost ferocious
in thei