bathe, too," Hermione said.

"What--to-day!" Maurice said, quickly.

"Oh no. Emile is here to-day."

Then Artois did not mean to go till late. But he--Maurice--must go down
to the sea before nightfall.

"Unless I bathe," he said, trying to speak naturally--"unless I bathe I
feel the heat too much at night. A dip in the sea does wonders for me."

"And in such a sea!" said Artois. "You must have your dip to-day. I shall
go directly that little wind you speak of comes. I told a boy to come up
from the village at four to lead the donkey down."

He smiled deprecatingly.

"Dreadful to be such a weakling, isn't it?" he said.

"Hush. Don't talk, like that. It's all going away. Strength is coming.
You'll soon be your old self. But you've got to look forward all the
time."

Hermione spoke with a warmth, an energy that braced. She spoke to Artois,
but Maurice, eager to grasp at any comfort, strove to take the words to
himself. This evening the climax of his Sicilian tragedy must come. And
then? Beyond, might there not be the calm, the happiness of a sane life?
He must look forward, he would look forward.

But when he looked, there stood Maddalena weeping.

He hated himself. He loved happiness, he longed for it, but he knew he
had lost his right to it, if any man ever has such a right. He had
created suffering. How dared he expect, how dared he even wish, to escape
from suffering?

"Now, Emile," Hermione said, "you have really got to go in and lie down
whether you feel sleepy or not. Don't protest. Maurice and I have hardly
seen anything of each other yet. We want to get rid of you."

She spoke laughingly, and laughingly he obeyed her. When she had settled
him comfortably in the sitting-room she came out again to the terrace
where her husband was standing, looking towards the sea. She had a rug
over her arm and was holding two cushions.

"I thought you and I might go down and take our siesta under the
oak-trees, Maurice. Would you like that?"

He was longing to get away, to go up to the heap of stones on the
mountain-top and set a match to the fragments of Hermione's letter, which
the dangerous wind might disturb, might bring out into the light of day.
But he acquiesced at once. He would go later--if not this afternoon, then
at night when he came back from the sea. They went down and spread the
rug under the shadow of the oaks.

"I used to read to Gaspare here," he said. "When you were away in
Africa."

"What