to find out
surreptitiously what Emile knew.

A moment later Vere, coming back swiftly for a pencil she had forgotten,
heard the sharp grating of a key in the lock of her mother's door.

She ran on lightly, wondering why her mother was locking herself in, and
against whom.

CHAPTER XVIII

During the last days Artois had not been to the island, nor had he seen
the Marchesino. A sudden passion for work had seized him. Since the
night of Vere's meeting with Peppina his brain had been in flood with
thoughts. Life often acts subtly upon the creative artist, repressing
or encouraging his instinct to bring forth, depressing or exciting
him when, perhaps, he expects it least. The passing incidents of life
frequently have their hidden, their unsuspected part in determining his
activities. So it was now with Artois. He had given an impetus to Vere.
That was natural, to be expected, considering his knowledge and his
fame, his great experience and his understanding of men. But now Vere
had given an impetus to him--and that was surely stranger. Since the
conversation among the shadows of the cave, after the vision of the
moving men of darkness and of fire, since the sound of Peppina sobbing
in the night, and the sight of her passionate face lifted to show its
gashed cross to Vere, Artois' brain and head had been alive with a fury
of energy that forcibly summoned him to work, that held him working. He
even felt within him something that was like a renewal of some part of
his vanished youth, and remembered old days of student life, nights in
the Quartier Latin, his debut as a writer for the papers, the sensation
of joy with which he saw his first article in the _Figaro_, his dreams
of fame, his hopes of love, his baptism of sentiment. How he had worked
in those days and nights! How he had hunted experience in the streets
and the by-ways of the great city! How passionate and yet how ruthless
he had been, as artists often are, governed not only by their quick
emotions, but also by the something watchful and dogged underneath, that
will not be swept away, that is like a detective hidden by a house door
to spy out all the comers in the night. Something, some breath from the
former days, swept over him again. In his ears there sounded surely the
cries of Paris, urging him to the assault to the barricades of Fame. And
he sat down, and he worked with the vehement energy, with the pulsating
eagerness of one of "les jeunes." Hour afte