The silence was profound. The rising moon
cast its pale beams upon the white walls of the cottage, the white seats
of the terrace. There was no wind. The leaves of the oaks and the
olive-trees beneath the wall were motionless. Nothing stirred. Above the
cottage the moonlight struck on the rocks, showed the nakedness of the
mountain-side. A curious sense of solitude, such as he had never known
before, took possession of Delarey. It did not make him feel sad at
first, but only emancipated, free as he had never yet felt free, like one
free in a world that was curiously young, curiously unfettered by any
chains of civilization, almost savagely, primitively free. So might an
animal feel ranging to and fro in a land where man had not set foot. But
he was an animal without its mate in the wonderful breathless night. And
the moonlight grew about him as he walked, treading softly he scarce knew
why, to and fro, to and fro.

Hermione was nearing the coast now. Soon she would be on board the
steamer and on her way across the sea to Africa. She would be on her way
to Africa--and to Artois.

Delarey recalled his conversation with Gaspare, when the boy had asked
him whether Artois was Hermione's brother, or a relation, or whether he
was old. He remembered Gaspare's intonation when he said, almost sternly,
"The signora should have taken us with her to Africa." Evidently he was
astonished. Why? It must have been because he--Delarey--had let his wife
go to visit a man in a distant city alone. Sicilians did not understand
certain things. He had realized his own freedom--now he began to realize
Hermione's. How quickly she had made up her mind. While he was sleeping
she had decided everything. She had even looked out the trains. It had
never occurred to her to ask him what to do. And she had not asked him to
go with her. Did he wish she had?

A new feeling began to stir within him, unreasonable, absurd. It had come
to him with the night and his absolute solitude in the night. It was not
anger as yet. It was a faint, dawning sense of injury, but so faint that
it did not rouse, but only touched gently, almost furtively, some spirit
drowsing within him, like a hand that touches, then withdraws itself,
then steals forward to touch again.

He began to walk a little faster up and down, always keeping along the
terrace wall.

He was primitive man to-night, and primitive feelings were astir in him.
He had not known he possessed them, yet he-