Signore, how can I tell what you will do here? How can I tell what you
are here?"

For a moment Artois felt deeply wounded--wounded to the quick. He had
not supposed it was possible for any one to hurt him so much with a few
quiet words. Anger rose in him, an anger such as the furious attack of
the Marchesino had never brought to the birth.

"You can say that!" he exclaimed. "You can say that, after Sicily!"

Gaspare's face changed, softened for an instant, then grew stern again.

"That was long ago, Signore. It was all different in Sicily!"

His eyes filled with tears, yet his face remained stern. But Artois was
seized again, as when he walked in the golden air between the vineyards
and heard the peasants singing, by an intense desire to bring happiness
to the unhappy, especially and above all to one unhappy woman. To-night
his intellect was subordinate to his heart, his pride of intellect was
lost in feeling, in an emotion that the simplest might have understood
and shared: the longing to be of use, to comfort, to pour balm into the
terrible wound of one who had been his friend--such a friend as only a
certain type of woman can be to a certain type of man.

"Gaspare," he said, "you and I--we helped the Signora once, we helped
her in Sicily."

Gaspare looked away from him, and did not answer.

"Perhaps we can help her now. Perhaps only we can help her. Let me into
the house, Gaspare. I shall do nothing here to make your Padrona sad."

Gaspare looked at him again, looked into his eyes, then moved aside,
giving room for him to enter. As soon as he was in the passage Gaspare
shut the door.

"I am sorry, Signore; the lamp is not lighted."

Artois felt at once an unusual atmosphere in the house, an atmosphere
not of confusion but of mystery, of secret curiosity, of brooding
apprehension. At the foot of the servants' staircase he heard a remote
sound of whispering, which emphasized the otherwise complete silence of
this familiar dwelling, suddenly become unfamiliar to him--unfamiliar
and almost dreadful.

"I had better go into the garden."

"Si, Signore."

Gaspare looked down the servants' staircase and hissed sharply:

"Sh! S-s-sh!"

"The Signora--?" asked Artois, as Gaspare came to him softly.

"The Signora is always in her room. She is shut up in her room."

"I saw the Signora just now, at the window," Artois said, in an
undervoice.

"You saw the Signora?"

Gaspare looked at him with sudden eagern