The Call of the Blood

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.