work, Vere--now we are in the dark."

And then he heard the revelation of the child, there under the weary
rock, as he had heard the revelation of the mother. How different it
was! Yet in it, too, there was the beating of the pulse of life. But
there was no regret, no looking back into the past, no sombre
exhibition of force seeking--as a thing groping, desperately in a gulf
--an object on which to exercise itself. Instead there was aspiration,
there was expectation, there was the wonder of bright eyes lifted to
the sun. And there was a reverence that for a moment recalled to
Artois the reverence of the dead man from whose loins this child had
sprung. But Vere's was the reverence of understanding, not of a dim
amazement--more beautiful than Maurice's. When he had been with
Hermione under the brooding rock Artois had been impregnated with the
passionate despair of humanity, and had seen for a moment the world
with out-stretched hands, seeking, surely, for the nonexistent,
striving to hold fast the mirage. Now he was impregnated with
humanity's passionate hope. He saw life light-footed in a sweet chase
for things ideal. And all the blackness of the rock and of the silent
sea was irradiated with the light that streamed from a growing soul.

A voice--an inquiring, searching voice, surely, rose quivering from
some distance on the sea, startling Vere and Artois. It was untrained
but unshy, and the singer forced it with resolute hardihood that was
indifferent to the future. Artois had never heard the Marchesino sing
before, but he knew at once that it was he. Some one at the island
must surely have told the determined youth that Vere was voyaging, and
he was now in quest of her, sending her an amorous summons couched in
the dialect of Naples.