"What is Salvatore going to do?"
"Unless you go down to the sea to meet him this evening, signorino, he
is coming up here to-night to tell everything to the signora."
Maurice went white.
"I shall go," he said. "I shall go down to the sea."
"Madonna! Madonna!"
"He won't come now? He won't come this morning?"
Maurice spoke almost breathlessly, with his hands on the boy's hands
which streamed with sweat. Gaspare shook his head.
"I told him if he came up I would meet him in the path and kill him."
The boy had out a knife.
Maurice put his arm round Gaspare's shoulder. At that moment he really
loved the boy.
"Will he come?"
"Only if you do not go."
"I shall go."
"I will come with you, signorino."
"No. I must go alone."
"I will come with you!"
A dogged obstinacy hardened his whole face, made even his shining eyes
look cold, like stones.
"Gaspare, you are to stay with the signora. I may miss Salvatore going
down. While I am gone he may come up here. The signora is not to speak
with him. He is not to come to her."
Gaspare hesitated. He was torn in two by his dual affection, his dual
sense of the watchful fidelity he owed to his padrone and to his padrona.
"Va bene," he said, at last, in a half whisper.
He hung down his head like one exhausted.
"How will it finish?" he murmured, as if to himself. "How will it
finish?"
"I must go," Maurice said. "I must go now. Gaspare!"
"Si, signore?"
"We must be careful, you and I, to-day. We must not let the signora,
Lucrezia, any one suspect that--that we are not just as usual. Do you
see?"
"Si, signore."
The boy nodded. His eyes now looked tired.
"And try to keep a lookout, when you can, without drawing the attention
of the signora. Salvatore might change his mind and come up. The signora
is not to know. She is never to know. Do you think"--he hesitated--"do
you think Salvatore has told any one?"
"Non lo so."
The boy was silent. Then he lifted his hands again and said: "Signorino! Signorino!"
And Maurice seemed to hear at that moment the voice of an accusing angel.
"Gaspare," he said, "I was mad. We men--we are mad sometimes. But now I
must be sane. I must do what I can to--I must do what I can--and you must
help me."