before him. If he ever knew!
Maurice remembered his sensation that already, before he had done the
fisherman any wrong, the fisherman had condemned him. Now there was a
reason for condemnation. He had no physical fear of Salvatore. He was not
a man to be physically afraid of another man. But if Salvatore ever knew
he might tell. He might tell Hermione. That thought brought with it to
Maurice a cold as of winter. The malign spirit might still have a purpose
in connection with him, might still be near him full of intention. He
felt afraid of the Sicily he had loved. He longed to leave it. He thought
of it as an isle of fear, where terrors walked in the midst of the glory
of the sunshine, where fatality lurked beside the purple sea.

"Maurice!"

He started. Hermione was on the steps of the sitting-room.

"You're not sleeping!" he said.

He felt as if she had been there reading all his thoughts.

"And you!" she answered.

"The sun woke me."

He lied instinctively. All his life with her would be a lie now, could
never be anything else--unless----

He looked at her hard and long in the eyes for the first time since they
had met after her return. Suppose he were to tell her, now, at once, in
the stillness, the wonderful innocence and clearness of the dawn! For a
moment he felt that it would be an exquisite relief, a casting down of an
intolerable burden. She had such a splendid nature. She loved sincerity
as she loved God. To her it was the one great essential quality, whose
presence or absence made or marred the beauty of a human soul. He knew
that.

"Why do you look at me like that?" she said, coming down to him with the
look of slow strength that was always characteristic of her.

He dropped his eyes.

"I don't know. How do you mean?"

"As if you had something to tell me."

"Perhaps--perhaps I have," he answered.

He was on the verge, the very verge of confession. She put her arm
through his. When she touched him the impulse waned, but it did not die
utterly away.

"Tell it me," she said. "I love to hear everything you tell me. I don't
think you could ever tell me anything that I should not understand."

"Are you--are you sure?"

"I think so."

"But"--he suddenly remembered some words of hers that, till then, he had
forgotten--"but you had something to tell me."

"Yes."

"I want to hear it."

He could not speak yet. Perhaps presently he would be able to.

"Let us go up to the top of the mounta