"No, signora."
"We shall be able to rest presently," she said.
She was thinking of the time when they would take Maurice from her. She
left Gaspare sitting near the bed, and went out onto the terrace.
Lucrezia and Gaspare, both thoroughly tired out, were sleeping soundly.
She was thankful for that. Soon, she knew, she would have to be with
people, to talk, to make arrangements. But now she had a short spell of
solitude.
She went slowly up the mountain-side till she was near the top. Then she
sat down on a rock and looked out towards the sea.
The world was not awake yet, although the sun was coming. Etna was like a
great phantom, the waters at its foot were pale in their tranquillity.
The air was fresh, but there was no wind to rustle the leaves of the
oak-trees, upon whose crested heads Hermione gazed down with quiet,
tearless eyes.
She had a strange feeling of being out of the world, as if she had left
it, but still had the power to see it. She wondered if Maurice felt like
that.
He had said it would be good to lie beneath those oak-trees in sight of
Etna and the sea. How she wished that she could lay his body there,
alone, away from all other dead. But that was impossible, she supposed.
She remembered the doctor's words. What were they going to do? She did
not know anything about Italian procedure in such an event. Would they
take him away? She had no intention of trying to resist anything, of
offering any opposition. It would be useless, and besides he had gone
away. Already he was far off. She did not feel, as many women do, that so
long as they are with the body of their dead they are also with the soul.
She would like to keep the dear body, to have it always near to her, to
live close to the spot where it was committed to the earth. But Maurice
was gone. Her Mercury had winged his way from her, obedient to a summons
that she had not heard. Always she had thought of him as swift, and
swiftly, without warning, he had left her. He had died young. Was that
wonderful? She thought not. No; age could have nothing to say to him,
could hold no commerce with him. He had been born to be young and never
to be anything else. It seemed to her now strange that she had not felt
this, foreseen that it must be so. And yet, only yesterday, she had
imagined a far future, and their child laying them in the ground of
Sicily, side by side, and murmuring "Buon riposo" above their mutual
sleep.