She broke off short in her mental arrangement of possible happenings when Maurice should wake.
The afternoon waned and still he slept. As she watched the light changing on the sea, growing softer, more wistful, and the long outline of Etna becoming darker against the sky, Hermione felt a sort of unreasonable despair taking possession of her. So few hours of the day were left now, and on the morrow this Sicilian life—a life that had been ideal—must come to an end for a time, and perhaps forever. The abruptness of the blow which had fallen had wakened in her sensitive heart a painful, almost an exaggerated sense of the uncertainty of the human fate. It seemed to her that the joy which had been hers in these tranquil Sicilian days, a joy more perfect than any she had conceived of, was being broken off short, as if it could never be renewed. With her anxiety for her friend mingled another anxiety, more formless, but black and horrible in its vagueness.
"If this should be our last day together in Sicily!" she thought, as she watched the light softening among the hills and the shadows of the olive-trees lengthening upon the ground.
"If this should be our last night together in the house of the priest!"
It seemed to her that even with Maurice in another place she could never know again such perfect peace and joy, and her heart ached at the thought of leaving it.
"To-morrow!" she thought. "Only a few hours and this will all be over!"
It seemed almost incredible. She felt that she could not realize it thoroughly and yet that she realized it too much, as in a nightmare one seems to feel both less and more than in any tragedy of a wakeful hour.
A few hours and it would all be over—and through those hours Maurice slept.
The twilight was falling when he stirred, muttered some broken words, and opened his eyes. He heard no sound, and thought it was early morning.
"Hermione!" he said, softly.