"I know!" she whispered. "You haven't forgotten!"
She was alluding to that morning on the terrace when he came up from the
fishing. They loosed their hands. Gaspare set the clock playing again.
"What a beauty!" Hermione said, glad to hide her emotion for a moment
till she and Maurice could be alone. "What a marvel! Where did you find
it, Gaspare--at the fair?"
"Si, signora!"
Solemnly he handed it, still playing brightly, to his padrona, just a
little reluctantly, perhaps, but very gallantly.
"It is for you, signora."
"A present--oh, Gaspare!"
Again her voice was veiled. She put out her hand and touched the boy's
hand.
"Grazie! How sweetly it plays! You thought of me!"
There was a silence till the tune was finished. Then Maurice said: "Hermione, I don't know what to say. That we should be at the fair the
day you arrived! Why--why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you write?"
"You didn't know, then!"
The words came very quickly, very eagerly.
"Know! Didn't Lucrezia tell you that we had no idea?"
"Poor Lucrezia! She's in a dreadful condition. I found her in the
village."
"No!" Maurice cried, thankful to turn the conversation from himself,
though only for an instant. "I specially told her to stay here. I
specially----"
"Well, but, poor thing, as you weren't expecting me! But I wrote,
Maurice, I wrote a letter telling you everything, the hour we were
coming--"
"It's Don Paolo!" exclaimed Gaspare, angrily. "He hides away the letters.
He lets them lie sometimes in his office for months. To-morrow I will go
and tell him what I think; I will turn out every drawer."
"It is too bad!" Maurice said.
"Then you never had it?"
"Hermione"--he stared at the open door--"you think we should have gone to
the fair if----"
"No, no, I never thought so. I only wondered. It all seemed so strange."
"It is too horrible!" Maurice said, with heavy emphasis. "And Artois--no
rooms ready for him! What can he have thought?"
"As I did, that there had been a mistake. What does it matter now? Just
at the moment I was dreadfully--oh, dreadfully disappointed. I saw
Gaspare at the fair. And you saw me, Gaspare?"
"Si, signora. I ran all the way to the station, but the train had gone."
"But I didn't see you, Maurice. Where were you?"