darkness before them, and saw the
dim outline of a boat, then the eyes of Emile looking straight into
hers.

"Emile!"

"Hermione!"

His face was gone. But yielding to her impulse she made Andrea stop,
and, turning round, saw that the other boat had also stopped a little
way from hers. It began to back, and in a moment was level with them.

"Emile! How strange to meet you! Have--you haven't been to the island?"

"No. I was tired. I have been working very hard. I dined quietly at
Posilipo."

He did not ask her where she had been.

"Yes. I think you look tired," she said. He did not speak, and she
added: "I felt restless, so I took the tram from the Trattoria del
Giardinetto as far as the Scoglio di Frisio, and am going back, as you
see, by boat."

"It is exquisite on the sea to-night," he said.

"Yes, exquisite, it makes one sad."

She remembered all she had been through that day, as she looked at his
powerful face.

"Yes," he answered. "It makes one sad."

For a moment she felt that they were in perfect sympathy, as they used
to be. Their sadness, born of the dreaming hour, united them.

"Come soon to the island, dear Emile," she said, suddenly and with the
impulsiveness that was part of her, forgetting all her jealousy and all
her shadowy fears. "I have missed you."

He noticed that she ruled out Vere in that sentence; but the warmth of
her voice stirred warmth in him, and he answered:

"Let me come to-morrow."

"Do--do!"

"In the morning, to lunch, and to spend a long day."

Suddenly she remembered the Marchesino and the sound of his voice when
he had spoken of his friend.

"Lunch?" she said.

Instantly he caught her hesitation, her dubiety.

"It isn't convenient, perhaps?"

"Perfectly, only--only the Marchesino is coming."

"To-morrow--To lunch?"

The hardness of the Marchesino's voice was echoed now in the voice of
Artois. There was antagonism between these men. Hermione realized it.

"Yes. I invited him this evening."

There was a slight pause. Then Artois said:

"I'll come some other day, Hermione. Well, my friend, au revoir, and bon
voyage to the island."

His voice had suddenly become cold, and he signed to his boatman.

"Avanti!"

The boat slipped away and was lost in the darkness.

Hermione had said nothing. Once again--why, she did not know--her friend
had made her feel guilty.

Andrea, the boatman, still paused. Now she saw him staring into her
face, and she felt l