Just then Artois felt as if in the night he was walking with the
Eternities, as if that song, now fading away across the sea, came even
from them. We do not die. For in that song to which Hermione bent down
--the dead man lived when that boy's voice sang it. In that boat, now
vanishing upon the sea, the dead man held an oar. In that warm young
heart of Ruffo the dead man moved, and spoke--spoke to his child,
Vere, whom he had never seen, spoke to his wife, Hermione, whom he had
deceived, yet whom he had loved.
Then let him--let the dead man himself--speak out of that temple which
he had created in a moment of lawless passion, out of that son whom he
had made to live by the action which had brought upon him death.
Ruffo--all was in the hands of Ruffo, to whom Hermione, weeping, bent
for consolation.
The song died away. Yet Hermione did not move, but still leaned over
the sea. She scarcely knew where she was. The soul of her, the
suffering soul, was voyaging through the mist with Ruffo, was voyaging
through the mist and through the night with--her Sicilian and all the
perfect past.
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