""One can never tell what will happen--suppose one of us were to die here? Don"t you think it would be good to lie there where we lay this afternoon, under the oak-trees, in sight of Etna and the sea? I think it would."
They were his very last words, his who was so full of life, who scarcely ever seemed to realize the possibility of death. All through the day death had surely been in the air about them. She remembered her dream, or quasi-dream. In it she had spoken. She had muttered an appeal, "Don"t leave me alone!" and at another time she had tried to realize Maurice in England and had failed. She had felt as if Sicily would never let him go.
And when she had spoken her thought he had hinted that Sicily could only keep him by holding him in arms of earth, holding him in those arms that keep the body of man forever.
Perhaps it was ordained that her Sicilian should never leave the island that he loved. In all their Sicilian days how seldom had she thought of their future life together in England! Always she had seen herself with Maurice in the south. He had seemed to belong to the south, and she had brought him to the south. And now--would the south let him go? The thought of the sirens of legend flitted through her mind. They called men to destruction. She imagined them sitting among the rocks near the Casa della Sirene, calling--calling to her Sicilian.
Long ago, when she first knew him well and loved his beauty, she had sometimes thought of him as a being of legend. She had let her fancy play about him tenderly, happily. He had been Mercury, Endymion, a dancing faun, Cupid vanishing from Psyche as the dawn came. And now she let a cruel fancy have its will for a moment. She imagined the sirens calling among the rocks, and Maurice listening to their summons, and going to his destruction. The darkness of the ravine helped the demon who hurried with her down the narrow path, whispering in her ears. But though she yielded for a time to the nightmare spell, common-sense had not utterly deserted her, and presently it made its voice heard. She began to say to herself that in giving way to such fantastic fears she was being unworthy of herself, almost contemptible. In former times she had never been a foolish woman or weak. She had, on the contrary, been strong and sensible, although unconventional and enthusiastic. Many people had leaned upon her, even strong people. Artois was one. And she had never yet failed any one.
"I must not fail myself," she suddenly thought. "I must not be a fool because I love."
She loved very much, and she had been separated from her lover very soon.
Her eagerness to return to him had been so intense that it had made her afraid. Yet she had returned, been with him again. Her fear in Africa that they would perhaps never be together again in their Sicilian home had been groundless. She remembered how it had often tormented her, especially at night in the dark. She had pa.s.sed agonizing hours, for no reason. Her imagination had persecuted her. Now it was trying to persecute her more cruelly. Suddenly she resolved not to let it have its way. Why was she so frightened at a delay that might be explained in a moment and in the simplest manner? Why was she frightened at all?
Gaspare"s foot struck a stone and sent it flying down the path past her.
Ah! it had been Gaspare. His face, his manner, had startled her, had first inclined her to fear.
"Gaspare!" she said.
"Si, signora?"
"Come up beside me. There"s room now."
The boy joined her.
"Gaspare," she continued, "do you know that when we meet the padrone, you and I, we shall look like two fools?"
"Meet the padrone?" he repeated, sullenly.
"Yes. He"ll laugh at us for rushing down like this. He"ll think we"ve gone quite mad."
Silence was the only response she had.
"Won"t he?" she asked.
"Non lo so."
"Oh, Gaspare!" she exclaimed. "Don"t--don"t be like this to-night. Do you know that you are frightening me?"
He did not answer.
"What is the matter with you? What has been the matter with you all day?"
"Niente."
His voice was hard, and he fell behind again.
Hermione knew that he was concealing something from her. She wondered what it was. It must be something surely in connection with his anxiety.
Her mind worked rapidly. Maurice--the sea--bathing--Gaspare"s fear--Maurice and Gaspare had bathed together often while she had been in Africa.
"Gaspare," she said. "Walk beside me--I wish it."
He came up reluctantly.
"You"ve bathed with the padrone lately?"
"Si, signora."
"Many times?"
"Si, signora."
"Have you ever noticed that he was tired in the sea, or afterwards, or that bathing seemed to make him ill in any way?"
"Tired, signora?"
"You know there"s a thing, in English we call it cramp. Sometimes it seizes the best swimmers. It"s a dreadful pain, I believe, and the limbs refuse to move. You"ve never--when he"s been swimming with you, the padrone has never had anything of that kind, has he? It wasn"t that which made you frightened this evening when he didn"t come?"
She had unwittingly given the boy the chance to save her from any worse suspicion. With Sicilian sharpness he seized it. Till now he had been in a dilemma, and it was that which had made him sullen, almost rude. His position was a difficult one. He had to keep his padrone"s confidence.
Yet he could not--physically he could not--stay on the mountain when he knew that some tragedy was probably being enacted, or had already been enacted by the sea. He was devoured by an anxiety which he could not share and ought not to show because it was caused by the knowledge which he was solemnly pledged to conceal. This remark of Hermione gave him a chance of shifting it from the shoulders of the truth to the shoulders of a lie. He remembered the morning of sirocco, his fear, his pa.s.sion of tears in the boat. The memory seemed almost to make the lie he was going to tell the truth.
"Si, signora. It was that."
His voice was no longer sullen.
"The padrone had an attack like that?"
Again the terrible fear came back to her.
"Signora, it was one morning."
"Used you to bathe in the morning?"
A hot flush came in Gaspare"s face, but Hermione did not see it in the darkness.
"Once we did, signora. We had been fishing."
"Go on. Tell me!"
Then Gaspare related the incident of his padrone"s sinking in the sea.
Only he made Maurice"s travesty appear a real catastrophe. Hermione listened with painful attention. So Maurice had nearly died, had been into the jaws of death, while she had been in Africa! Her fears there had been less ill-founded than she had thought. A horror came upon her as she heard Gaspare"s story.
"And then, signora, I cried," he ended. "I cried."
"You cried?"
"I thought I never could stop crying again."
How different from an English boy"s reticence was this frank confession!