When he heard the tinkling tune Gaspare lifted his head and listened till it was over. It recalled to him all the glories of the fair. He saw his padrone before him. He remembered how he had decorated Maurice with flowers, and he felt as if his heart would break.
"The povero signorino! the povero signorino!" he cried, in a choked voice. "And I put roses above his ears! Si, signora, I did! I said he should be a real Siciliano!"
He began to rock himself to and fro. His whole body shook, and his face had a frantic expression that suggested violence.
"I put roses above his ears!" he repeated. "That day he was a real Siciliano!"
"Gaspare—Gaspare—hush! Don't! Don't!"
She held his hand and went on speaking softly.
"We must be quiet in here. We must remember to be quiet. It isn't our fault, Gaspare. We did all we could to make him happy. We ought to be glad of that. You did everything you could, and he loved you for it. He was happy with us. I think he was. I think he was happy till the very end. And that is something to be glad of. Don't you think he was very happy here?"
"Si, signora!" the boy whispered, with twitching lips.
"I'm glad I came back in time," Hermione said, looking at the dark hair on the pillow. "It might have happened before, while I was away. I'm glad we had one more day together."
Suddenly, as she said that, something in the mere sound of the words seemed to reveal more clearly to her heart what had befallen her, and for the first time she began to cry and to remember. She remembered all Maurice's tenderness for her, all his little acts of kindness. They seemed to pass rapidly in procession through her mind on their way to her heart. Not one surely was absent. How kind to her he had always been! And he could never be kind to her again. And she could never be kind to him—never again.