“Don’t. You needn’t tell me any more.”
“Gaspare heard it too. It went on for a long, long time. We—Gaspare made the servants keep downstairs ever since. And I—I have been waiting for you to come, because Madre cares for you.”
Artois put his hand down quickly upon Vere’s right hand.
“I am glad that you sent for me, Vere. I am glad you think that. Come and sit down on the bench.”
He drew her down beside him. He felt that he was with a child whom he must comfort. Gaspare stood always looking down over the rail of the terrace to the sea.
“Vere!”
“Yes, Monsieur Emile.”
“You mother is not ill as you thought—feared. But—to-day—she has had, she must have had, a great shock.”
“But at Mergellina?”
“Only that could account for what you have just told me.”