When the funeral was over she walked up the mountain with Gaspare to the
Casa del Prete, and from there, on the following day, she sent a message
to Artois, asking him if he would come to see her.
"I don't ask you to forgive me for not seeing you before," she
wrote. "We understand each other and do not need explanations. I
wanted to see nobody. Come at any hour when you feel that you would
like to.
HERMIONE."
Artois rode up in the cool of the day, towards evening.
He was met upon the terrace by Gaspare.
"The signora is on the mountain, signore," he said. "If you go up you
will find her, the povero signora. She is all alone upon the mountain."
"I will go, Gaspare. I have told Maddalena. I think she will be silent."
The boy dropped his eyes. His unreserve of the island had not endured. It
had been a momentary impulse, and now the impulse had died away.
"Va bene, signore," he muttered.
He had evidently nothing more to say, yet Artois did not leave him
immediately.
"Gaspare," he said, "the signora will not stay here through the great
heat, will she?"
"Non lo so, signore."
"She ought to go away. It will be better if she goes away."
"Si, signore. But perhaps she will not like to leave the povero
signorino."
Tears came into the boy's eyes. He turned away and went to the wall, and
looked over into the ravine, and thought of many things: of readings
under the oak-trees, of the tarantella, of how he and the padrone had
come up from the fishing singing in the sunshine. His heart was full, and
he felt dazed. He was so accustomed to being always with his padrone that
he did not know how he was to go on without him. He did not remember his
former life, before the padrone came. Everything seemed to have begun for
him on that morning when the train with the padrone and the padrona in it
ran into the station of Cattaro. And now everything seemed to have
finished.
Artois did not say any more to him, but walked slowly up the mountain
leaning on his stick. Close to the top, by a heap of stones that was
something like a cairn, he saw, presently, a woman sitting. As he came
nearer she turned her head and saw him. She did not move. The soft rays
of the evening sun fell on her, and showed him that her square and rugged
face was pale and grave and, he thought, empty-looking, as if something
had deprived it of its former possession, the ardent vitality, the
generous enthusiasm, the look of swiftness he had loved.