"Mamma mia!" cried Lucrezia, as another shout of laughter came up from the ravine, "how merry and mad they are! They have had a good night's fishing."
Hermione heard the laughter, but now it sounded a little harsh in her ears.
"I wonder," she thought, as she leaned upon the terrace wall—"I wonder if he has missed me at all? I wonder if men ever miss us as we miss them?"
Her call, it seemed, had not been heard, nor her gesture of welcome seen, but now Maurice looked up, waved his cap, and shouted. Gaspare, too, took off his linen hat with a stentorian cry of "Buon giorno, signora."
"Signora!" said Lucrezia.
"Yes?"
"Look! Was not I right? Are they carrying anything?"
Hermione looked eagerly, almost passionately, at the two figures now drawing near to the last ascent up the bare mountain flank. Maurice had a stick in one hand, the other hung empty at his side. Gaspare still waved his hat wildly, holding it with both hands as a sailor holds the signalling-flag.
"Perhaps," she said—"perhaps it wasn't a good night, and they've caught nothing."
"Oh, signora, the sea was calm. They must have taken—"