ite
wall above the steep bank of the ravine, Artois said to himself that the
South was dangerous to young, full-blooded men, was dangerous, to such a
man as Delarey. And he asked himself the question, "What has this man
been doing here in this glorious loneliness of the South, while his wife
has been saving my life in Africa?" And a sense of reproach, almost of
alarm, smote him. For he had called Hermione away. In the terrible
solitude that comes near to the soul with the footfalls of death he had
not been strong enough to be silent. He had cried out, and his friend had
heard and had answered. And Delarey had been left alone with the sun.

"I'm afraid you must feel as if I were your enemy," he said.

And as he spoke he was thinking, "Have I been this man's enemy?"

"Oh no. Why?"

"I deprived you of your wife. You've been all alone here."

"I made friends of the Sicilians."

Maurice spoke lightly, but through his mind ran the thought, "What an
enemy this man has been to me, without knowing it!"

"They are easy to get on with," said Artois. "When I was in Sicily I
learned to love them."

"Oh, love!" said Maurice, hastily.

He checked himself.

"That's rather a strong word, but I like them. They're a delightful
race."

"Have you found out their faults?"

Both men were trying to hide themselves in their words.

"What are their faults, do you think?" Maurice said.

He looked over the wall and saw, far off on the path by the ravine, a
black speck moving.

"Treachery when they do not trust; sensuality, violence, if they think
themselves wronged."

"Are--are those faults? I understand them. They seem almost to belong to
the sun."

Artois had not been looking at Maurice. The sound of Maurice's voice now
made him aware that the speaker had turned away from him. He glanced up
and saw his companion staring over the wall across the ravine. What was
he gazing at? Artois wondered.

"Yes, the sun is perhaps partly responsible for them. Then you have
become such a sun-worshipper that----"

"No, no, I don't say that," Maurice interrupted.

He looked round and met Artois's observant eyes. He had dreaded having
those eyes fixed upon him.

"But I think--I think things done in such a place, such an island as
this, shouldn't be judged too severely, shouldn't be judged, I mean,
quite as we might judge them, say, in England."

He looked embarrassed as he ended, and shifted his gaze from his
companion.

"I agree w