"Gaspare knows now," she thought. "I don't know, but Gaspare knows."
That seemed to her strange, that any one should know the truth of this
thing before she did. For what did it matter to any one but her? Maurice
was hers--was so absolutely hers that she felt as if no one else had any
concern in him. He was Gaspare's padrone. Gaspare loved him as a Sicilian
may love his padrone. Others in England, too, loved him--his mother, his
father. But what was any love compared with the love of the one woman to
whom he belonged. His mother had her husband. Gaspare--he was a boy. He
would love some girl presently; he would marry. No, she was right. The
truth about that "something in the water" only concerned her. God's
dealing with this creature of his to-night only really mattered to her.
As she waited, pressing her hands on the stones and looking always at the
point of the dark land round which the boat must come, a strange and
terrible feeling came to her, a feeling that she knew she ought to drive
out of her soul, but that she was powerless to expel.
She felt as if at this moment God were on His trial before her--before a
poor woman who loved.
"If God has taken Maurice from me," she thought, "He is cruel,
frightfully cruel, and I cannot love Him. If He has not taken Maurice
from me, He is the God who is love, the God I can, I must worship!"
Which God was he?
The vast scheme of the world narrowed; the wide horizons vanished. There
was nothing beyond the limit of her heart. She felt, as almost all
believing human beings feel in such moments, that God's attention was
entirely concentrated upon her life, that no other claimed His care,
begged for His pity, demanded His tenderness because hers was so intense.
Did God wish to lose her love? Surely not! Then He could not commit this
frightful act which she feared. He had not committed it.
A sort of relief crept through her as she thought this. Her agony of
apprehension was suddenly lessened, was almost driven out.
God wants to be loved by the beings He has created. Then He would not
deliberately, arbitrarily destroy a love already existing in the heart of
one of them--a love thankful to Him, enthusiastically grateful for
happiness bestowed by Him.
Beyond the darkness of the point there came out of the dimness of the
night that brooded above the open sea a moving darkness, and Hermione
heard the splash of oars in the calm water. She got up quickly. Now her
body was trembling again. She stared at the boat as if she would force it
to yield its secret to her eyes. But that was only for an instant. Then
her ears seemed to be seeking the truth, seeking it from the sound of the
oars in the water!