And Maurice--what would he say? What would he--do?
If only he would wake! There was something terrible to her in the
contrast between his condition and hers at this moment.
And what ought she to do if Maurice--?
She broke off short in her mental arrangement of possible happenings when
Maurice should wake.
The afternoon waned and still he slept. As she watched the light changing
on the sea, growing softer, more wistful, and the long outline of Etna
becoming darker against the sky, Hermione felt a sort of unreasonable
despair taking possession of her. So few hours of the day were left now,
and on the morrow this Sicilian life--a life that had been ideal--must
come to an end for a time, and perhaps forever. The abruptness of the
blow which had fallen had wakened in her sensitive heart a painful,
almost an exaggerated sense of the uncertainty of the human fate. It
seemed to her that the joy which had been hers in these tranquil Sicilian
days, a joy more perfect than any she had conceived of, was being broken
off short, as if it could never be renewed. With her anxiety for her
friend mingled another anxiety, more formless, but black and horrible in
its vagueness.
"If this should be our last day together in Sicily!" she thought, as she
watched the light softening among the hills and the shadows of the
olive-trees lengthening upon the ground.
"If this should be our last night together in the house of the priest!"
It seemed to her that even with Maurice in another place she could never
know again such perfect peace and joy, and her heart ached at the thought
of leaving it.
"To-morrow!" she thought. "Only a few hours and this will all be over!"
It seemed almost incredible. She felt that she could not realize it
thoroughly and yet that she realized it too much, as in a nightmare one
seems to feel both less and more than in any tragedy of a wakeful hour.
A few hours and it would all be over--and through those hours Maurice
slept.
The twilight was falling when he stirred, muttered some broken words, and
opened his eyes. He heard no sound, and thought it was early morning.
"Hermione!" he said, softly.
Then he lay still for a moment and remembered.
"By Jove! it must be long past time for déjeuner!" he thought.
He sprang up and put his head into the sitting-room.
"Hermione!" he called.
"Yes," she answered, from the terrace.