"Yes."
"From the arch. It is better up here. Always, when I am very happy or
very sad, my instinct would be to seek a mountain-top. The sight of great
spaces seen from a height teaches one, I think."
"What?"
"Not to be an egoist in one's joy; not to be a craven in one's sorrow.
You see, a great view suggests the world, the vastness of things, the
multiplicity of life. I think that must be it. And of course it reminds
one, too, that one will soon be going away."
"Going away?"
"Yes. 'The mountains will endure'--but we--!"
"Oh, you mean death."
"Yes. What is it makes one think most of death when--when life, new life,
is very near?"
She had been gazing at the mountains and the sea, but now she turned and
looked into his face.
"Don't you understand what I have to tell you?" she asked.
He shook his head. He was still wondering whether he would dare to tell
her of his sin. And he did not know. At one moment he thought that he
could do it, at another that he would rather throw himself over the
precipice of the mountain than do it.
"I don't understand it at all."
There was a lack of interest in his voice, but she did not notice it. She
was full of the wonder of the morning, the wonder of being again with
him, and the wonder of what she had to tell him.
"Maurice"--she put her hand on his--"the night I was crossing the sea to
Africa I knew. All these days I have kept this secret from you because I
could not write it. It seemed to me too sacred. I felt I must be with you
when I told it. That night upon the sea I was very sad. I could not
sleep. I was on deck looking always back, towards Sicily and you. And
just when the dawn was coming I--I knew that a child was coming, too, a
child of mine and yours."
She was silent. Her hand pressed his, and now she was again looking
towards the sea. And it seemed to him that her face was new, that it was
already the face of a mother.
He said nothing and he did not move. He looked down at the heap of stones
by which they were sitting, and his eyes rested on a piece of paper
covered with writing. It was a fragment of Hermione's letter to him. As
he saw it something sharp and cold like a weapon made of ice, seemed to
be plunged into him. He got up, pulling hard at her hand. She obeyed his
hand.