He stretched out his hand to the table, lifted the death-charm from among the silver ornaments, held it, kept it in his hand, which he laid upon his knee.
If Ruffo had carried death in his boy’s hand over the sea to the island, had carried death to Hermione!
Artois tried to imagine that house without Hermione, his life without Hermione.
For a long time he sat, always holding the death-charm in his hand, always with his eyes fixed upon it, until at last in it, as in a magic mirror, among the scars of its burning, and among the nails that pierced it, as the woman who had fashioned it, and fired it, and muttered witch’s words over it, longed to pierce the heart of her enemy, he saw scenes of the past, and shadowy, moving figures. He saw among the scars and among the nails Hermione and himself!
They were in Paris, at a table strewn with flowers. That was the first scene in the magic mirror of the fattura della morte, the scene in which they met for the first time. Hermione regarded him almost with timidity. And he looked at her doubtfully, because she had no beauty.
Then they were in another part of Paris, in his “Morocco slipper of a room,” crammed with books, and dim with Oriental incense and tobacco smoke, his room red and yellow, tinted with the brilliant colors of the East. And he turned to her for sympathy, and he received it in full measure, pressed down and running over. He told her his thought, and he told her his feelings, his schemes, his struggles, his moments of exaltation, his depressions. Something, much indeed of him was hers, the egotistic part of a man that does really give, but that keeps back much, and that seeks much more than it gives. And what he sought she eagerly, generously gave, with both hands, never counting any cost. Always she was giving and always he was taking.
Then they were in London, in another room full of books. He stood by a fire, and she was seated with a bundle of letters in her lap. And his heart was full of something that was like anger, and of a dull and smouldering jealousy. And hers was full of a new and wonderful beauty, a piercing joy.
He sighed deeply. He stirred. He looked up for a moment and listened.
But all the house was silent. And again he bent over the death-charm.
He stood by a door. Outside was the hum of traffic, inside a narrow room. And now in the magic mirror a third figure showed itself, a figure of youth incarnate, brave, passionate, thrilling with the joy of life. He watched it, how coldly, although he felt its charm, the rays of fire that came from it, as sunbeams come from the sun! And apprehension stirred within him. And presently in the night, by ebony waters, and by strange and wandering lights, and under unquiet stars, he told Hermione something of his fear.