There remained the life in Vere.

To-day Artois knew from Hermione's own lips that she could not live
completely in her child, and he felt that he had been blind as men are
often blind about women, are blind because they are secretly selfish.
The man lives for himself, but he thinks it natural, even
distinctively womanly, that women should live for others--for him, for
some other man, for their children. What man finds his life in his
child? But the woman--she surely ought to, and without difficulty.
Hermione had been sincere to-day, and Artois knew his blindness, and
knew his secret selfishness.

The gray was lifting a little over Naples, the distant shadowy form of
Vesuvius was becoming clearer, more firm in outline. But the boatman
rowed slowly, influenced by the scirocco.

How, then, was Hermione to live? How was she to find happiness or
peace? It was a problem which he debated with an ardor that had in it
something of passion. And he began to wonder how it would have been if
he had acted differently, if he had allowed her to find out what he
suspected to be the exact truth of the dead man. Long ago he had saved
her from suffering. But by doing so had he not dedicated her, not to a
greater, but to a longer suffering? He might have defiled a beautiful
memory. He must have done so had he acted differently. But if he had
defiled it, might not Hermione have been the subject of a great
revulsion? Horror can kill, but it can also cure. It can surely root
out love. But from such a heart as Hermione's?

Despite all his understanding of women, Artois felt at a loss to-day.
He could not make up his mind what would have been the effect upon