But could they ever be comrades again? And if they could not, what
could they be?
As the boat slipped on, under the Saint's light, which was burning
although the mist had hidden it from Hermione's searching eyes, and
out to the open sea, Artois heard again her fierce exclamation. It
blended with Vere's sob. He looked up and saw the faint lights of the
Casa del Mare fading from him in the night. And an immense sadness,
mingled with an immense, but chaotic, longing invaded him. He felt
horribly lonely, and he felt a strange, new desire for the nearness to
him of life. He yearned to feel life close to him, pulsing with a
rhythm to which the rhythm of his being answered. He yearned for that
strange and exquisite satisfaction, compounded of mystery and wonder,
and thrilling with something akin to pain, that is called forth in the
human being who feels another human being centring all its highest
faculties, its strongest powers, its deepest hopes in him. He desired
intensely, as he had never desired before, true communion with
another, that mingling of bodies, hearts, and spirits, that is the
greatest proof of God to man.
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