But he
thought he would probably visit the island to-night--after another
visit which he intended to pay. He could not start at once. He must
give Gaspare time to take the boat and row off. For his first visit
was to Mergellina.
After waiting an hour he started on foot, keeping along by the sea, as
he did not wish to meet acquaintances, and was likely to meet them in
the Villa. As he drew near to Mergellina he felt a great and growing
reluctance to do what he had come to do, to make inquiries into a
certain matter; and he believed that this reluctance, awake within him
although perhaps he had scarcely been aware of it, had kept him
inactive during many days. Yet he was not sure of this. He was not
sure when a faint suspicion had first been born in his mind. Even now
he said to himself that what he meant to do, if explained to the
ordinary man, would probably seem to him ridiculous, that the ordinary
man would say, "What a wild idea! Your imagination runs riot." But he
thought of certain subtle things which had seemed like indications,
like shadowy pointing fingers; of a look in Gaspare's eyes when they
had met his--a hard, defiant look that seemed shutting him out from
something; of a look in another face one night under the moon; of some
words spoken in a cave with a passion that had reached his heart; of
two children strangely at ease in each other's society.
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