"Ecco, Signor Dottore! They have carried the poor signore up."
The second light moved waveringly back towards the first.
"They are carrying him into the house, Signor Dottore. Madonna! And all this to happen in the night!"
The doctor nodded without speaking. He was watching the lights up there in that lonely place. He was not a man of strong imagination, and was accustomed to look on misery, the misery of the poor. But to-night he felt a certain solemnity descend upon him as he rode by these dark by-paths up into the bosom of the hills. Perhaps part of this feeling came from the fact that his mission had to do with strangers, with rich people from a distant country who had come to his island for pleasure, and who were now suddenly involved in tragedy in the midst of their amusement. But also he had a certain sense of personal sympathy. He had known Hermione on her former visit to Sicily and had liked her; and though this time he had seen scarcely anything of her he had seen enough to be aware that she was very happy with her young husband. Maurice, too, he had seen, full of the joy of youth and of bounding health. And now all that was put out, if Giuseppe's account were true. It was a pity, a sad pity.
The donkey crossed the mouth of the ravine, and picked its way upward carefully amid the loose stones. In the ravine a little owl hooted twice.
"Giuseppe!" said the doctor.
"Signore?"
"The signora has been away, hasn't she?"
"Si signore. In Africa."
"Nursing that sick stranger. And now directly she comes back here's this happening to her! Per Dio!"