"I like the people best," she added. "They say what they feel simply, and it means ever so much more. Am I a democrat?"
He could not help laughing.
"Chi lo sa? An Anarchist perhaps."
She laughed too.
"Bella tu si--Bella tu si! It"s too absurd! One would think--"
"What, Vere?"
"Never mind. Don"t be inquisitive, Monsieur Emile."
He rowed on meekly.
"There is San Francesco"s light," she said, in a moment. "I wonder if it is late. Have we been away long? I have no idea."
"No more have I."
Nor had he.
When they reached land he made the boat fast and turned to walk up to the house with her. He found her standing very still just behind him at the edge of the sea, with a startled look on her face.
"What is it, Vere?" he asked.
"Hush!"
She held up her hand and bent her head a little to one side, as one listening intently.
"I thought I heard--I did hear--something--"
"Something?"
"Yes--so strange--I can"t hear it now."
"What was it like?"
She looked fixedly at him.
"Like some one crying--horribly."
"Where? Near us?"
"Not far. Listen again."
He obeyed, holding his breath. But he heard nothing except the very faint lapping of the sea at their feet.
"Perhaps I imagined it," she said at length.
"Let us go up to the house," he said. "Come, Vere."
He had a sudden wish to take her into the house. But she remained where she was.
"Could it have been fancy, Monsieur Emile?"
"No doubt."
Her eyes were intensely grave, almost frightened.
"But--just look, will you? Perhaps there really is somebody."
"Where? It"s so dark."
Artois hesitated; but Vere"s face was full of resolution, and he turned reluctantly to obey her. As he did so there came to them both through the dark the sound of a woman crying and sobbing convulsively.
"What is it? Oh, who can it be?" Vere cried out.
She went swiftly towards the sound.
Artois followed, and found her bending down over the figure of a girl who was crouching against the cliff, and touching her shoulder.
"What is it? What is the matter? Tell me."
The girl looked up, startled, and showed a pa.s.sionate face that was horribly disfigured. Upon the right cheek, extending from the temple almost to the line of the jaw, a razor had cut a sign, a brutal sign of the cross. As Vere saw it, showing redly through the darkness, she recoiled. The girl read the meaning of her movement, and shrank backward, putting up her hand to cover the wound. But Vere recovered instantly, and bent down once more, intent only on trying to comfort this sorrow, whose violence seemed to open to her a door into a new and frightful world.
"Vere!" said Artois. "Vere, you had better--"
The girl turned round to him.
"It must be Peppina!" she said.
"Yes. But--"
"Please go up to the house, Monsieur Emile. I will come in a moment."
"But I can"t leave you--"
"Please go. Just tell Madre I"m soon coming."
There was something inexorable in her voice. She turned away from him and began to speak softly to Peppina.
Artois obeyed and left her.
He knew that just then she would not acknowledge his authority. As he went slowly up the steps he wondered--he feared. Peppina had cried with the fury of despair, and the Neapolitan who is desperate knows no reticence.
Was the red sign of pa.s.sion to be scored already upon Vere"s white life?
Was she to pa.s.s even now, in this night, from her beautiful ignorance to knowledge?