As she took her hands from the wall, and turned to go on up the hill to

the point which commanded the open sea and the beginning of the Straits

of Messina, she was terrified. Suspicion was hardening into certainty.

Something dreadful must have happened to Maurice.

Her legs had begun to tremble again. All her body felt weak and

incapable, like the body of an old person whose life was drawing to an

end. The hill, not very steep, faced her like a precipice, and it seemed

to her that she would not be able to mount it. In the road the deep dust

surely clung to her feet, refusing to let her lift them. And she felt

sick and contemptible, no longer her own mistress either physically or

mentally. The voices within her that strove to whisper commonplaces of

consolation, saying that Maurice had gone to Marechiaro, or that he had

taken another path home, not the path from Isola Bella, brought her no

comfort. The thing within her soul that knew what she, the human being

containing it, did not know, told her that her terror had its reason,

that she was not suffering in this way without cause. It said, "Your

terror is justified."

At last she was at the top of the hill, and could see vaguely the shore

by the caves where the fishermen had slept in the dawn. To her right was

the path which led to the wall of rock connecting the Sirens' Isle with

the main-land. She glanced at it, but did not think of following it.

Gaspare must have followed the descending road. He must be down there on

that beach searching, calling his padrone's name, perhaps. She began to

descend slowly, still physically distressed. True to her fixed idea that

if there had been a disaster it must be connected with the sea, she

walked always close to the wall, and looked always down to the sea.

Within a short time, two or three minutes, she came in sight of the

lakelike inlet, a miniature fiord which lay at the feet of the woods

where hid the Casa delle Sirene. The water here looked black like ebony.

She stared down at it and saw a boat lying on the shore. Then she gazed

for a moment at the trees opposite from which always, till to-night, had

shone the lamp which she and Maurice had seen from the terrace. All was

dark. The thickly growing trees did not move. Secret and impenetrable

seemed to her the hiding-place they made. She could scarcely imagine that

any one lived among them. Yet doubtless the inhabitants of the Casa delle

Sirene were sleeping quietly there while she wandered on the white road

accompanied by her terror.




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