“Do you know anything about her?”
“Oh yes. I had a talk with Ruffo the other night. And he told me several things.”
Each time Hermione mentioned Ruffo’s name it seemed to Artois that her voice softened, almost that she gave the word a caress. He longed to ask her something, but he was afraid to.
He would try not to interfere with Fate. But he would not hasten its coming—if it were coming. And he knew nothing. Perhaps the anxious suspicion which had taken up its abode in his mind, and which, without definite reason, seemed gradually changing into conviction was erroneous. Perhaps some day he would laugh at himself, and say to himself, “I was mad to dream of such a thing.”
“Those women often have a bad time,” he said.
“Few women do not, I sometimes think.”
He said nothing, and she went on rather hastily, as if wishing to cover her last words.
“Ruffo told me something that I did not know about Peppina. His step-father was the man who cut that cross on Peppina’s face.”
“Perdio!” said Artois.
He used the Italian exclamation at that moment quite naturally. Suddenly he wished more than ever before that Hermione had not taken Peppina to live on the island.