"
They went forward, and almost immediately heard a murmur of voices.
"Vere is with some one," said Artois.
"It must be Ruffo. It is Ruffo."
She stood still. Artois stood still beside her. The night was
windless. Voices travelled through the dreaming silence.
"Don't be afraid. Sing it to me."
Vere's voice was speaking. Then a boy's voice rang out in the song of
Mergellina. The obedient voice was soft and very young, though manly.
And it sounded as if it sang only for one person, who was very near.
Yet it was impersonal. It asked nothing from, it told nothing to, that
person. Simply, and very naturally, it just gave to the night a very
simple and a very natural song.
As Artois listened he felt as if he learned what he had not been able
to learn that day at Mergellina. Strange as this thing was--if indeed
it was--he felt that it must be, that it was ordained to be, it and
all that might follow from it. He even felt almost that Hermione must
already know it, have divined it, as if, therefore, any effort to hide
it from her must be fruitless, or even contemptible, as if indeed all
effort to conceal truth of whatever kind was contemptible.
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