The boy's voice was intensely, almost savagely, earnest.
"No. You must stay with the signora."
"I want to come with you."
His great eyes were fastened on his padrone's face.
"I have always been with you."
"But you were with the signora first. You were her servant. You must stay
with her now. Remember one thing, Gaspare--the signora is never to know."
The boy nodded. His eyes still held Maurice. They glittered as if with
leaping fires. That deep and passionate spirit of Sicilian loyalty, which
is almost savage in its intensity and heedless of danger, which is ready
to go to hell with, or for, a friend or a master who is beloved and
believed in, was awake in Gaspare, illuminated him at this moment. The
peasant boy looked noble.
"Mayn't I come with you, signorino?"
"Gaspare," Maurice said, "I must leave some one with the padrona.
Salvatore might come still. I may miss him going down. Whom can I trust
to stop Salvatore, if he comes, but you? You see?"
"Va bene, signorino."
The boy seemed convinced, but he suffered and did not try to conceal it.
"Now I must go," Maurice said.
He shook Gaspare's hand.
"Have you got the revolver, signorino?" said the boy.
"No. I am not going to fight with Salvatore."
"How do you know what Salvatore will do?"
Maurice looked down upon the stones that lay on the narrow path.
"My revolver can have nothing to do with Maddalena's father," he said.
He sighed.
"That's how it is, Gaspare. Addio!"
"Addio, signorino."
Maurice went on down the path into the shadow of the trees. Presently he
turned. Gaspare stood quite still, looking after him.
"Signorino!" he called. "May I not come? I want to come with you."
Maurice waved his hand towards the mountain-side.
"Go to the signora," he called back. "And look out for me to-night.
Addio, Gaspare!"
The boy's "Addio!" came to him sadly through the gathering shadows of the
evening.
Presently Hermione, who was sitting alone on the terrace with a book in
her lap which she was not reading, saw Gaspare walking listlessly through
the archway holding his gun. He came slowly towards her, lifted his hat,
and was going on without a word, but she stopped him.
"Why, Gaspare," she said, lightly, "you forgot us to-day. How was that?"
"Signora?"
Again she saw the curious, almost ugly, look of obstinacy, which she had
already noticed, come into his face.