That he should be alive and Delarey dead! How extraordinary that was! For
he had been close to death, so close that it would have seemed quite
natural to him to die. Had not Hermione come to him, he thought, he
would almost, at the crucial stage in his illness, have preferred to die.
It would have been a far easier, far simpler act than the return to
health and his former powers. And now he stood here alive, looking at the
sea, and Delarey's dead body was being carried to the hospital.
Was the fact that he was alive the cause of the fact that Delarey was
dead? Abruptly one of those furtive thoughts had leaped forward out of
its dark place and challenged him boldly, even with a horrible brutality.
Too late now to try to force it back. It must be faced, be dealt with.
Again, and much more strongly than on the previous day, Artois felt that
in Hermione's absence the Sicilian life of the dead man had not run
smoothly, that there had been some episode of which she knew nothing,
that he, Artois, had been right in his suspicions at the cottage. Delarey
had been in fear of something, had been on the watch. When he had sat by
the wall he had been tortured by some tremendous anxiety.
He had gone down to the sea to bathe. That was natural enough. And he had
been found dead under a precipice of rock in the sea. The place was a
dangerous one, they said. A man might easily fall from the rock in the
night. Yes; but why should he be there?
That thought now recurred again and again to the mind of Artois. Why had
Delarey been at the place where he had met his death? The authorities of
Marechiaro were going to inquire into that, were probably down at the sea
now. Suppose there had been some tragic episode? Suppose they should find
out what it was?
He saw Hermione in the midst of her grief the central figure of some
dreadful scandal, and his heart sickened.
But then he told himself that perhaps he was being led by his
imagination. He had thought that possible yesterday. To-day, after what
had occurred, he thought it less likely. This sudden death seemed to tell
him that his mind had been walking in the right track. Left alone in
Sicily, Delarey might have run wild. He might have gone too far. This
death might be a vengeance.
Artois was deeply interested in all human happenings, but he was not a
vulgarly curious man. He was not curious now, he was only afraid for
Hermione. He longed to protect her from any further grief. If there were
a dreadful truth to know, and if, by knowing it, he could guard her more
efficiently, he wished to know it. But his instinct was to get her away
from Sicily at once, directly the funeral was over and the necessary
arrangements could be made. For himself, he would rather go in ignorance.
He did not wish to add to the heavy burden of his remorse.