When Hermione woke it was four o'clock. She sat up on the rug, looked

down over the mountain flank to the sea, then turned and saw her husband.

He was lying with his face half buried in his folded arms.

"Maurice!" she said, softly.

"Yes," he answered, lifting his face.

"Then you weren't asleep!"

"No."

"Have you been asleep?"

"No."

She looked at her watch.

"All this time! It's four. What a disgraceful siesta! But I was really

tired after the long journey and the night."

She stood up. He followed her example and threw the rug over his arm.

"Emile will think we've deserted him and aren't going to give him any

tea."

"Yes."

They began to walk up the track towards the terrace.

"Maurice," Hermione said, presently, more thoroughly wide-awake now. "Did

you get up while I was asleep? Did you begin to move away from me, and

did I stop you, or was it a dream? I have a kind of vague

recollection--or is it only imagination?--of stretching out my hand and

saying, 'Don't leave me alone--don't leave me alone!'"

"I moved a little," he answered, after a slight pause.

"And you did stretch out your hand and murmur something."

"It was that--'don't leave me alone.'"

"Perhaps. I couldn't hear. It was such a murmur."

"And you only moved a little? How stupid of me to think you were getting

up to go away!"

"When one is half asleep one has odd ideas often."

He did not tell her that he had been getting up softly, hoping to steal

away to the mountain-top and destroy the fragments of her letter, hidden

there, while she slept.

"You won't mind," he added, "if I go down to bathe this evening. I

sha'n't sleep properly to-night unless I do."

"Of course--go. But won't it be rather late after tea?"

"Oh no. I've often been in at sunset."

"How delicious the water must look then! Maurice!"

"Yes?"

"Shall I come with you? Shall I bathe, too? It would be lovely,

refreshing, after this heat! It would wash away all the dust of the

train!"

Her face was glowing with the anticipation of pleasure. Every little

thing done with him was an enchantment after the weeks of separation.

"Oh, I don't think you'd better, Hermione," he answered, hastily.

"I--you--there might be people. I--I must rig you up something first, a

tent of some kind. Gaspare and I will do it. I can't have my wife--"




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