d only been able to love me so long as
Maurice was with me."

"That feeling will pass away."

"Perhaps when my child comes," she said, very simply.

Artois had not known about the coming of the child, but Hermione did not
remember that now.

"Your child!" he said.

"I am glad I came back in time to tell him about the child," she said. "I
think at first he was almost frightened. He was such a boy, you see. He
was the very spirit of youth, wasn't he? And perhaps that--but at the end
he seemed happy. He kissed me as if he loved not only me. Do you
understand, Emile? He seemed to kiss me the last time--for us both. Some
day I shall tell my baby that."

She was silent for a little while. She looked out over the great view,
now falling into a strange repose. This was the land he had loved, the
land he had belonged to.

"I should like to hear the 'Pastorale' now," she said, presently. "But
Sebastiano--" A new thought seemed to strike her. "I wonder how some
women can bear their sorrows," she said. "Don't you, Emile?"

"What sorrows do you mean?" he asked.

"Such a sorrow as poor Lucrezia has to bear. Maurice always loved me.
Lucrezia knows that Sebastiano loves some one else. I ought to be trying
to comfort Lucrezia. I did try. I did go to pray with her. But that was
before. I can't pray now, because I can't feel sure of almost anything. I
sometimes think that this happened without God's meaning it to happen."

"God!" Artois said, moved by an irresistible impulse. "And the gods, the
old pagan gods?"

"Ah!" she said, understanding. "We called him Mercury. Yes, it is as if
he had gone to them, as if they had recalled their messenger. In the
spring, before I went to Africa, I often used to think of legends, and
put him--my Sicilian--"

She did not go on. Yet her voice had not faltered. There was no
contortion of sorrow in her face. There was a sort of soft calmness about
her almost akin to the calmness of the evening. It was the more
remarkable in her because she was not usually a tranquil woman. Artois
had never known her before in deep grief. But he had known her in joy,
and then she had been rather enthusiastic than serene. Something of her
eager humanity had left her now. She made upon him a strange impression,
almost as of some one he had never previously had any intercourse with.
And yet she was being wonderfully natural with him, as natural as if she
were alone.

"What are you going to do, my friend?" he s