On a radiant day of September in the following year, from the little harbor of Mergellina a white boat with a green line put off. It was rowed by Gaspare, who wore his festa suit, and it contained two people, a man and a women, who had that morning been quietly married.

Another boat preceded theirs, going towards the island, but it was so far ahead of them that they could only see it as a moving dot upon the shining sea, when they rounded the breakwater and set their course for the point of land where lies the Antico Giuseppone.

Gaspare rowed standing up, with his back towards Hermione and Artois and his great eyes staring steadily out to sea. He plied the oars mechanically. During the first few minutes of the voyage to the island his mind was far away. He was a boy in Sicily once more, waiting proudly upon his first, and indeed his only, Padrona in the Casa del Prete on Monte Amato. Then she was quite alone. He could see her sitting at evening upon the terrace with a book in her lap, gazing out across the ravine and the olive-covered mountain slopes to the waters that kissed the shore of the Sirens’ Isle. He could see her, when night fell, going slowly up the steps into the lighted cottage, and turning on its threshold to wish him “Buon riposo.”

Then there was an interval—and she came again. He was waiting at the station of Cattaro. Outside stood the little train of donkeys, decorated with flowers under his careful supervision. Upon Monte Amato, in the Casa del Prete, everything was in readiness for the arrival of the Padrona—and the Padrone. For this time his Padrona was not to be alone. And the train came in, thundering along by the sea, and he saw a brown eager face looking out of a window—a face which at once had seemed familiar to him almost as if he had always known it in Sicily.

And the new and wonderful period of his boy’s life began.

But it passed, and in the early morning he stood in the corner of the Campo Santo where Protestants were buried, and threw flowers from his father’s terreno into an open grave.

And once more his Padrona was alone.

Far away from Sicily, from his “Paese,” among the great woods of the Abetone he received for the first time into his untutored arms his Padroncina. His Padrone was gone from him forever. But once more, as he would have expressed it to a Sicilian comrade, they were “in three.” And still another period began.

And now that period was ended.

As Gaspare rowed slowly on towards the island, in his simple and yet shrewd way he was pondering on life, on its irresistible movement, on its changes, its alternations of grief and joy, loneliness and companionship. He was silently reviewing the combined fates of his Padrona and himself.

Behind him for a long while there was silence. But when the boat was abreast of the sloping gardens of Posilipo Artois spoke at last.

“Hermione!” he said.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Do you remember that evening when I met you on the sea?”

“After I had been to Frisio’s? Yes I remember it.”

“You had been reading what I wrote in the wonderful book.”

“And I was wondering why you had written it.”

“I had no special reason. I thought of that saying. I had to write something, so I wrote that. I wonder—I wonder now why long ago my conscience did not tell me plainly something. I wonder it did not tell me plainly what you were in my life, all you were.”

“Have I—have I really been much?”

“I never knew how much till I thought of you permanently changed towards me, till I thought of you living, but with your affection permanently withdrawn from me. That night—you know—?”

“Yes, I know.”

“At first I was not sure—I was afraid for a moment about you. Vere and I were afraid, when your room was dark and we heard nothing. But even then I did not fully understand how much I need you. I only understood that in the Palace of the Spirits, when—when you hated me—”

“I don’t think I ever hated you.”

“Hatred, you know, is the other side of love.”

“Then perhaps I did. Yes—I did.”

“How long my conscience was inactive, was useless to me! It needed a lesson, a terrible lesson. It needed a cruel blow to rouse it.”

“And mine!” she answered, in a low voice.

“We shall make many mistakes, both of us,” he said. “But I think, after that night, we can never for very long misunderstand each other. For that night we were sincere.”

“Let us always be sincere.”

“Sincerity is the rock on which one should build the house of life.”

“Let us—you and I—let us build upon it our palace of the spirits.”

Then they were silent again. They were silent until the boat passed the point, until in the distance the island appeared, even until the prow of the boat grated against the rock beneath the window of the Casa del Mare.

As Hermione got out Gaspare bent to kiss her hand.

“Benedicite!” he murmured.

And, as she pressed his hand with both of hers, she answered:

“Benedicite!”

That night, not very late, but when darkness had fallen over the sea, Hermione said to Vere:

“I am going out for a little, Vere.”

“Yes, Madre.”

The child put her arms round her mother and kissed her. Hermione tenderly returned the kiss, looked at Artois, and went out.

She made her way to the brow of the island, and stood still for a while, drinking in the soft wind that blew to her from Ischia. Then she descended to the bridge and looked down into the Pool of San Francesco.

The Saint’s light was burning steadily. She watched it for a moment, and while she watched it she presently heard beneath her a boy’s voice singing softly the song of Mergellina:

The voice died away. There was a moment of silence.

She clasped the rail with her hand; she leaned down over the Pool.

“Buona notte, Ruffino!” she said softly.

And the voice from the sea answered her:

“Buona notte, Signora. Buona notte e buon riposo.”