retained by some crevice of the rock? There was a pain at her heart.
Her quick imagination was at work. It seemed to her as if she felt his
agony, took part in his struggle to regain his freedom. She clinched
her small hands and set her teeth. She held her breath, trying to feel
exactly as he was feeling. And then suddenly she lifted her hands up
to her face, covering her nostrils. What a horrible sensation it was,
this suffocation, this pressing of the life out of the body, almost as
one may push a person brutally out of a room! She could bear it no
more, and she dropped her hands. As she did so the boy's dark head
rose above the sea.

Vere uttered a cry of joy.

"Brave! Bravo!"

She felt as if he had returned from the dead. He was a wonderful boy.

"Bravo! Bravissimo!"

Serenely unconscious of her enthusiasm, the boy swam slowly for a
moment, breathing the air into his lungs, then serenely dived again.

"Vere!" called a woman's voice from the house--"Vere!"

"Madre!" cried the girl in reply, but without turning away from the
sea. "I am here! Do come out! I want to show you something."

On a narrow terrace looking towards Naples a tall figure appeared.

"Where are you?"