The face was already chilly, but thanks to Philip it was no
longer wet. Nor would it again be wetted by any tear.
Chapter 9
The details of Harriet's crime were never known. In her
illness she spoke more of the inlaid box that she lent to
Lilia--lent, not given--than of recent troubles. It was clear
that she had gone prepared for an interview with Gino, and
finding him out, she had yielded to a grotesque temptation.
But how far this was the result of ill-temper, to what
extent she had been fortified by her religion, when and how
she had met the poor idiot--these questions were never
answered, nor did they interest Philip greatly. Detection
was certain: they would have been arrested by the police of
Florence or Milan, or at the frontier. As it was, they had
been stopped in a simpler manner a few miles out of the town.
As yet he could scarcely survey the thing. It was too
great. Round the Italian baby who had died in the mud there
centred deep passions and high hopes. People had been
wicked or wrong in the matter; no one save himself had been
trivial. Now the baby had gone, but there remained this
vast apparatus of pride and pity and love. For the dead,
who seemed to take away so much, really take with them
nothing that is ours. The passion they have aroused lives
after them, easy to transmute or to transfer, but well-nigh
impossible to destroy. And Philip knew that he was still
voyaging on the same magnificent, perilous sea, with the sun
or the clouds above him, and the tides below.
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