her, not to a greater,
but to a longer suffering? He might have defiled a beautiful memory. He
must have done so had he acted differently. But if he had defiled it,
might not Hermione have been the subject of a great revulsion? Horror
can kill, but it can also cure. It can surely root out love. But from
such a heart as Hermione's?

Despite all his understanding of women, Artois felt at a loss to-day. He
could not make up his mind what would have been the effect upon Hermione
if she had learned that her husband had betrayed her.

Presently he left that subject and came to Vere.

When he did this he was conscious at once of a change within him. His
tenderness and pity for Hermione were replaced by another tenderness and
pity. And these were wholly for Vere. Hermione was suffering because
of Maurice. But Vere was surely suffering, subconsciously, because of
Hermione.

There were two links in the chain of suffering, that between Maurice and
Hermione, and that between Hermione and Vere.

For a moment he felt as if Vere were bereaved, were motherless. The
sensation passed directly he realized the exaggeration in his mind. But
he still felt as if the girl were deprived of something which she ought
to possess, which, till now, he had thought she did possess. It seemed
to him that Vere stood quite outside of her mother's life, instead of
in it, in its centre, its core; and he pitied the child, almost as he
pitied other children from time to time, children to whom their parents
were indifferent. And yet Hermione loved Vere, and Vere could not know
what he had only known completely to-day--that the mother often felt
lonely with the child.

Vere did not know that, but surely some day she would find it out.

Artois knew her character well, knew that she was very sensitive, very
passionate, quick to feel and quick to understand. He discovered in her
qualities inherited both from her father and her mother, attributes both
English and Sicilian. In appearance she resembled her father. She had
"thrown back" to the Sicilian ancestor, as he had. She had the Southern
eyes, the Southern grace, the Southern vivacity and warmth that had made
him so attractive. But Artois divined a certain stubbornness in Vere
that had been lacking in the dead man, a stubbornness that took its rise
not in stupidity but in a secret consciousness of force.

Vere, Artois thought, might be violent, but would not be fickle. She had
a loyalty in her that was