As Vere saw it, showing redly through the darkness, she
recoiled. The girl read the meaning of her movement, and shrank
backward, putting up her hand to cover the wound. But Vere recovered
instantly, and bent down once more, intent only on trying to comfort
this sorrow, whose violence seemed to open to her a door into a new
and frightful world.
"Vere!" said Artois. "Vere, you had better--"
The girl turned round to him.
"It must be Peppina!" she said.
"Yes. But--"
"Please go up to the house, Monsieur Emile. I will come in a moment."
"But I can't leave you--"
"Please go. Just tell Madre I'm soon coming."
There was something inexorable in her voice. She turned away from him
and began to speak softly to Peppina.
Artois obeyed and left her.
He knew that just then she would not acknowledge his authority. As he
went slowly up the steps he wondered--he feared. Peppina had cried
with the fury of despair, and the Neapolitan who is desperate knows no
reticence.
Was the red sign of passion to be scored already upon Vere's white
life? Was she to pass even now, in this night, from her beautiful
ignorance to knowledge?
CHAPTER XVII
That night the Marchesino failed in his search for Vere, and he
returned to Naples not merely disappointed but incensed.
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