irits."

"The Palazzo of the Spirits?" Artois repeated.

"Si, Signore."

Gaspare turned and looked again into the darkness.

"I cannot see the Signora any more."

"Follow the Signora, Gaspare. If she has gone to the Palazzo of the
Spirits row in there."

"Si, Signore."

He drew the oars again strongly through the water.

Artois remembered a blinding storm that had crashed over a mountain
village in Sicily long ago, a flash of lightning which had revealed to
him the gaunt portal of a palace that seemed abandoned, a strip of black
cloth, the words "_Lutto in famiglia_." They had seemed to him prophetic
words.

And now--?

In the darkness he saw another darkness, the strange and broken outline
of the ruined palace by the sea, once perhaps, the summer home of some
wealthy Roman, now a mere shell visited in the lonely hours by the
insatiate waves. Were Hermione and he to meet here? To-day he had
thought of his friend as a spirit that had been long in prison. Now he
came to the Palace of the Spirits to face her truth with his. The Palace
of the Spirits! The name suggested the very nakedness of truth. Well,
let it be so, let the truth stand there naked. Again, mingling with a
certain awe, there rose up in him a strong ardor, a courage that was
vehement, that longed at last to act. And it seemed to him suddenly that
for many years, through all the years that divided Hermione and him from
the Sicilian life, they had been held in leash, waiting for the moment
of this encounter. Now the leash slackened. They were being freed. And
for what?

Gaspare plunged his right oar into the sea alone. The boat swung round
obediently, heading for the shore.

One of the faint lights that gleamed in the village was extinguished.

"Signore, the Signora has left the boat!"

"Si?"

"Madonna! She has let it go! She has left it to the sea!"

He backed water. A moment later the little boat in which Vere loved to
go out alone grated against theirs.

"Madonna! To leave the boat like that!" exclaimed Gaspare, bending to
catch the tow-rope. "The Signora is not safe to-night. The Signora's
saint will not look on her to-night."

"Put me ashore, Gaspare."

"Si, Signore."

The boat passed before the facade of the palace.

Artois knew the palace well by day. This was the first time he had come
to it by night. In daylight it was a small and picturesque ruin washed
by the laughing sea, lonely but scarcely sad. Leaping from its dark a