"Si! Si! It is he!"
Hermione contradicted him.
"No, signora. It is a contadino."
Her joy was failing. Although she contradicted Gaspare, she began to feel that he was right. This step was heavy, weary, an old man's step. It could not be her Mercury coming up to his home on the mountain. But still she waited. Presently there detached itself from the darkness a faint figure, bent, crowned with a long Sicilian cap.
"Andiamo!"
This time she did not keep Gaspare back. Without a word they went on. As they came to the figure it stopped. She did not even glance at it, but as she went by it she heard an old, croaky voice say:
"Benedicite!"
Never before had the Sicilian greeting sounded horrible in her ears. She did not reply to it. She could not. And Gaspare said nothing. They hastened on in silence till they reached the high-road by Isola Bella, the road where Maurice had met Maddalena on the morning of the fair.
It was deserted. The thick white dust upon it looked ghastly at their feet. Now they could hear the faint and regular murmur of the oily sea by which the fishermen's boats were drawn up, and discern, far away on the right, the serpentine lights of Cattaro.
"Where do you go to bathe?" Hermione asked, always speaking in a hushed voice. "Here, by Isola Bella?"