leaping fires of the soul.

Suddenly Vere got up and went quietly away. While she had been with them
silence had been easy. Directly she was gone Artois felt that it was
difficult, in another moment that it was no longer possible.

"Am I to see Peppina to-night?" he asked.

"Do you wish to?"

Hermione's hands moved a little faster about their work when he spoke.

"I feel a certain interest in her, as I should in any new inhabitant of
the island. A very confined space seems always to heighten the influence
of human personality, I think. On your rock everybody must mean a good
deal, perhaps more than you realize, Hermione."

"I am beginning to realize that," she answered, quietly. "Perhaps they
mean too much. I wonder if it is wise to live as we do?"

"In such comparative isolation, you mean?"

"Yes."

She laid her work down in her lap.

"I'm afraid that by nature I am a monopolist," she said. "And as I could
never descend into the arena of life to struggle to keep what I have, if
others desired to take it from me, I am inclined jealously to guard it."

She took up her work again.

"I've been thinking that I am rather like the dog that buries his bone,"
she added, bending once more over the embroidery.

"Are you thinking of--of your husband?"

"Yes, and of Vere. I isolated myself with Maurice. Now I am isolating
myself with Vere. Perhaps it is unwise, weak, this instinct to keep out
the world."

"Are you thinking of changing your mode of life, then?" he asked.

In his voice there was a sound of anxiety which she noticed.

"Perhaps. I don't know."

She glanced at him and away, and he thought that there was something
strange in her eyes. After a pause, she said:

"What would you advise?"

"Surely you are happy here. And--and Vere is happy."

"Vere is happy--yes."

He realized the thoughtlessness of his first sentence.

"But I must think of Vere's development. Lately, in these last days, I
have been realizing that Vere is moving, is beginning to move very
fast. Perhaps it is time to bring her into contact with more people.
Perhaps--"

"You once asked my advice," he interrupted. "I give it now. Leave Vere
alone. What she needs she will obtain. Have no fear of that."

"You are sure?"

"Quite sure. Sometimes, often, the children know instinctively more than
their elders know by experience."

Hermione's lips trembled.

"Sometimes," she said, in a low voice, "I think Vere knows far more
than