ved the dead signore, if you care for his memory, do not talk
of your grief for him to others. Pray for him, and be silent for him. If
you are silent the Holy Mother will hear your prayers."

As he said the last words Artois made his deep voice sound mysterious,
mystical.

Then he went away softly among the thickly growing trees.

When he saw Salvatore again, still standing upon the plateau, he beckoned
to him without coming into the open.

"Bring the boat round to the inlet," he said. "I will cross from there."

"Si, signore."

"And as we cross we can speak a little more about America."

The fisherman stared at him, with a faint smile that showed a gleam of
sharp, white teeth.

"Si, signore--a little more about America."

XXV

A night and a day had passed, and still Artois had not seen Hermione. The
autopsy had been finished, and had revealed nothing to change the theory
of Dr. Marini as to the determining cause of death. The English stranger
had been crossing the dangerous wall of rock, probably in darkness, had
fallen, been stunned upon the rocks in the sea beneath, and drowned
before he recovered consciousness.

Gaspare said nothing. Salvatore held his peace and began his preparations
for America. And Maddalena, if she wept, wept now in secret; if she
prayed, prayed in the lonely house of the sirens, near the window which
had so often given a star to the eyes that looked down from the terrace
of the Casa del Prete.

There was gossip in Marechiaro, and the Pretore still preserved his air
of faint suspicion. But that would probably soon vanish under the
influence of the Cancelliere, with whom Artois had had some private
conversation. The burial had been allowed, and very early in the morning
of the day following that of Hermione's arrival at the hotel it took
place from the hospital.

Few people knew the hour, and most were still asleep when the coffin was
carried down the street, followed only by Hermione, and by Gaspare in a
black, ready-made suit that had been bought in the village of Cattaro.
Hermione would not allow any one else to follow her dead, and as Maurice
had been a Protestant there was no service. This shocked Gaspare, and
added to his grief, till Hermione explained that her husband had been of
a different religion from that of Sicily, a religion with different
rites.

"But we can pray for him, Gaspare," she said. "He loved us, and perhaps
he will know what we are doing."

The tho