tain that this was the letter that fixed the
date of her coming with Artois. He opened the two other letters and
glanced over them, and then at last he tore the covering from Hermione's.
A swift, searching look was enough. The letter dropped from his hand to
the seat. He had seen these words:

"Isn't it splendid? Emile may leave at once. But there is no good boat
till the tenth. We shall take that, and be at Cattaro on the eleventh at
five o'clock in the afternoon...."

"Isn't it splendid?"

For a moment he sat quite still in the glare of the sun, mentally
repeating to himself these words of his wife. So the inevitable had
happened. For he felt it was inevitable. Fate was against him. He was not
to have his pleasure.

"Signorino! Come sta lei? Lei sta bene?"

He started and looked up. He had heard no footstep. Salvatore stood by
him, smiling at him, Salvatore with bare feet, and a fish-basket slung
over his arm.

"Buon giorno, Salvatore!" he answered, with an effort.

Salvatore looked at Maurice's cigarette, put down the basket, and sat
down on the seat by Maurice's side.

"I haven't smoked to-day, signore," he began. "Dio mio! But it must be
good to have plenty of soldi!"

"Ecco!"

Maurice held out his cigarette-case.

"Take two--three!"

"Grazie, signore, mille grazie!"

He took them greedily.

"And the fair, signorino--only four days now to the fair! I have been to
order the donkeys for me and Maddalena."

"Davvero?" Maurice said, mechanically.

"Si, signore. From Angelo of the mill. He wanted fifteen lire, but I
laughed at him. I was with him a good hour and I got them for nine. Per
Dio! Fifteen lire and to a Siciliano! For he didn't know you were coming.
I took care not to tell him that."

"Oh, you took care not to tell him that I was coming!"

Maurice was looking over the wall at the platform of the station far down
below. He seemed to see himself upon it, waiting for the train to glide
in on the day of the fair, waiting among the smiling Sicilian facchini.

"Si, signore. Was not I right?"

"Quite right."

"Per Dio, signore, these are good cigarettes. Where do they come from?"

"From Cairo, in Egypt."

"Egitto! They must cost a lot."

He edged nearer to Maurice.

"You must be very happy, signorino."

"I!" Maurice laughed. "Madonna! Why?"

"Because you are so rich!"

There was a fawning sound in the fisherman's voice, a fawning look in his
small, screwed-up eyes.

"To you it