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Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950

"A Spirit in Prison"

She knew that it was so.
And again there rushed upon her that sensation of outrage, of being
defaced, and of approaching a dwelling in which things monstrous had
taken up their abode.
She came to the bridge and paused by the rail. She felt a sort of
horror of the Casa del Mare in which Artois was surely sitting--alone
or with Vere? With Vere. For otherwise he would have come up to the
cliff.
She leaned over the rail. She looked into the Pool. One boat was there
just below her, the boat to which Ruffo belonged. Was there another?
She glanced to the right. Yes; there lay by the rock a pleasure-boat
from Naples.
Artois had come in that.
She looked again at the other boat, searching the shadowy blackness
for the form of Ruffo. She longed that he might be awake. She longed
that he might sing, in his happy voice, of the happy summer nights, of
the sweet white moons that light the Southern summer nights, of the
bright eyes of Rosa, of the sea of Mergellina. But from the boat there
rose no voice, and the mist hung heavily over the silent Pool.


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