nto the boudoir. It was Madre. I know her
step. I know it was Madre!"

She reiterated her assertion, as if she anticipated that he was going to
dispute it.

"She stayed in the boudoir only a very little while--only a few minutes.
Oh, Monsieur Emile, but--"

"Vere. What do you mean? Did--what happened there--in the boudoir?"

He was reading from her face.

"She went--Madre went in there to--"

She stopped and swallowed.

"Madre took father's photograph--the one on the writing-table--and
tore it to pieces. And the frame--that was all bent and nearly broken.
Father's photograph, that she loves so much!"

Artois said nothing. At that moment it was as if he entered suddenly
into Hermione's heart, and knew every feeling there.

"Monsieur Emile--is she--is Madre--ill?"

She began to tremble once more, as she had trembled when she came to
fetch Gaspare from the nook of the cliff beside the Saint's Pool.

"Not as you mean, Vere."

"You are sure? You are certain?"

"Not in that way."

"But then I heard Madre come out and go to her bedroom. I didn't hear
whether she locked the door. I only heard it shut. But Gaspare says
he knows it is locked. Two or three minutes after the door was shut I
heard--I heard--"

"Don't be afraid. Tell me--if I ought to know."

Those words voiced a deep and delicate reluctance which was beginning to
invade him. Yet he wished to help Vere, to release this child from the
thrall of a terror which could only be conquered if it were expressed.

"Tell me," he added, slowly.

"I heard Madre--Monsieur Emile, it was hardly crying!"

"Don't. You needn't tell me any more."

"Gaspare heard it too. It went on for a long, long time. We--Gaspare
made the servants keep downstairs ever since. And I--I have been waiting
for you to come, because Madre cares for you."

Artois put his hand down quickly upon Vere's right hand.

"I am glad that you sent for me, Vere. I am glad you think that. Come
and sit down on the bench."

He drew her down beside him. He felt that he was with a child whom he
must comfort. Gaspare stood always looking down over the rail of the
terrace to the sea.

"Vere!"

"Yes, Monsieur Emile."

"You mother is not ill as you thought--feared. But--to-day--she has had,
she must have had, a great shock."

"But at Mergellina?"

"Only that could account for what you have just told me."

"But I don't understand. She only went to Mergellina."

"Did you see her before she