en sea and the beginning of the Straits
of Messina, she was terrified. Suspicion was hardening into certainty.
Something dreadful must have happened to Maurice.

Her legs had begun to tremble again. All her body felt weak and
incapable, like the body of an old person whose life was drawing to an
end. The hill, not very steep, faced her like a precipice, and it seemed
to her that she would not be able to mount it. In the road the deep dust
surely clung to her feet, refusing to let her lift them. And she felt
sick and contemptible, no longer her own mistress either physically or
mentally. The voices within her that strove to whisper commonplaces of
consolation, saying that Maurice had gone to Marechiaro, or that he had
taken another path home, not the path from Isola Bella, brought her no
comfort. The thing within her soul that knew what she, the human being
containing it, did not know, told her that her terror had its reason,
that she was not suffering in this way without cause. It said, "Your
terror is justified."

[Illustration: "SHE COULD SEE VAGUELY THE SHORE BY THE CAVES WHERE THE
FISHERMEN HAD SLEPT IN THE DAWN"]

At last she was at the top of the hill, and could see vaguely the shore
by the caves where the fishermen had slept in the dawn. To her right was
the path which led to the wall of rock connecting the Sirens' Isle with
the main-land. She glanced at it, but did not think of following it.
Gaspare must have followed the descending road. He must be down there on
that beach searching, calling his padrone's name, perhaps. She began to
descend slowly, still physically distressed. True to her fixed idea that
if there had been a disaster it must be connected with the sea, she
walked always close to the wall, and looked always down to the sea.
Within a short time, two or three minutes, she came in sight of the
lakelike inlet, a miniature fiord which lay at the feet of the woods
where hid the Casa delle Sirene. The water here looked black like ebony.
She stared down at it and saw a boat lying on the shore. Then she gazed
for a moment at the trees opposite from which always, till to-night, had
shone the lamp which she and Maurice had seen from the terrace. All was
dark. The thickly growing trees did not move. Secret and impenetrable
seemed to her the hiding-place they made. She could scarcely imagine that
any one lived among them. Yet doubtless the inhabitants of the Casa delle
Sirene were sleeping quietly there whil