“But I don’t understand. She only went to Mergellina.”
“Did you see her before she went there?”
“Yes.”
“Was she as usual?”
“I don’t think she was. I think Madre has been changing nearly all this summer. That is why I am so afraid. You know she has been changing.”
He was silent. The difficulty of the situation was great. He did not know how to resolve it.
“You have seen the change, Monsieur Emile!”
He did not deny it. He did not know what to do or say. For of that change, although perhaps now he partly understood it, he could never speak to Vere or to any one.
“It has made me so unhappy,” Vere said, with a break in her voice.
And he had said to himself: “Vere must be happy!” At that moment he and his intellect seemed to him less than a handful of dust.