And now that the spirit had led him thus far, surely its work was done,
surely it would leave him alone. He tried to believe that.
Then he thought of Maddalena.
She was there, down there where the rising sun glittered on the sea. She
surely was awake, as he was awake. She was thinking, wondering--perhaps
weeping.
He got up. He could not look at the sea any more. The name "House of the
Sirens" suddenly seemed to him a terrible misnomer, now that he thought
of Maddalena perhaps weeping by the sea.
He had his revenge upon Salvatore, but at what a cost!
Salvatore! The fisherman's face rose up before him. If he ever knew!
Maurice remembered his sensation that already, before he had done the
fisherman any wrong, the fisherman had condemned him. Now there was a
reason for condemnation. He had no physical fear of Salvatore. He was not
a man to be physically afraid of another man. But if Salvatore ever knew
he might tell. He might tell Hermione. That thought brought with it to
Maurice a cold as of winter. The malign spirit might still have a purpose
in connection with him, might still be near him full of intention. He
felt afraid of the Sicily he had loved. He longed to leave it. He thought
of it as an isle of fear, where terrors walked in the midst of the glory
of the sunshine, where fatality lurked beside the purple sea.
"Maurice!"
He started. Hermione was on the steps of the sitting-room.
"You're not sleeping!" he said.
He felt as if she had been there reading all his thoughts.
"And you!" she answered.
"The sun woke me."
He lied instinctively. All his life with her would be a lie now, could
never be anything else--unless---He looked at her hard and long in the eyes for the first time since they
had met after her return. Suppose he were to tell her, now, at once, in
the stillness, the wonderful innocence and clearness of the dawn! For a
moment he felt that it would be an exquisite relief, a casting down of an
intolerable burden. She had such a splendid nature. She loved sincerity
as she loved God. To her it was the one great essential quality, whose
presence or absence made or marred the beauty of a human soul. He knew
that.
"Why do you look at me like that?" she said, coming down to him with the
look of slow strength that was always characteristic of her.
He dropped his eyes.