Even she had refused to let him go. And he had not pressed it.
Something had held him back from insisting, something secret, and
something secret had kept her from accepting his suggestion. She was
going to her greatest friend, to the man she had known intimately, long
before she had known him--Delarey--and he was left alone. In England he
had never had a passing moment of jealousy of Artois; but now, to-night,
mingled with his creeping resentment against the joys of the peasants, of
those not far from him under the moon of Sicily, there was a sensation of
jealousy which came from the knowledge that his wife was travelling to
her friend. That friend might be dead, or she might nurse him back to
life. Delarey thought of her by his bedside, ministering to him,
performing the intimate offices of the attendant on a sick man, raising
him up on his pillows, putting a cool hand on his burning forehead,
sitting by him at night in the silence of a shadowy room, and quite
alone.

He thought of all this, and the Sicilian that was in him grew suddenly
hot with a burning sense of anger, a burning desire for action,
preventive or revengeful. It was quite unreasonable, as unreasonable as
the vagrant impulse of a child, but it was strong as the full-grown
determination of a man. Hermione had belonged to him. She was his. And
the old Sicilian blood in him protested against that which would be if
Artois were still alive when she reached Africa.

But it was too late now. He could do nothing. He could only look at the
shining sea on which the ship would bear her that very night.

His inaction and solitude began to torture him. If he went in he knew he
could not sleep. The mere thought of the festa would prevent him from
sleeping. Again he looked at the lights of Castel Vecchio. He saw only
one now, and imagined it set in the window of Pancrazio's house. He even
fancied that down the mountain-side and across the ravine there floated
to him the faint wail of the ceramella playing a dance measure.

Suddenly he knew that he could not remain all night alone on the
mountain-side.

He went quickly into the cottage, got his soft hat, then went from room
to room, closing the windows and barring the wooden shutters. When he had
come out again upon the steps and locked the cottage door he stood for a
moment hesitating with the large door-key in his hand. He said to himself
that he was going to the festa at Castel Vecchio. Of course he was going