And Ruffo, all
ignorantly and unconsciously, had pierced the heart of Hermione.
Artois knew nothing of what had happened that day at Mergellina, but
he divined that it was Ruffo who, without words, had told Hermione the
truth. It must have been Ruffo, in whom the dead man lived again. And,
going beyond the innocent boy, deep into the shadows where lies so
much of truth, Artois saw the murdered man stirring from his sleep,
unable to rest because of the lie that had been coiled around his
memory, making it what it should not be. Perhaps only the dead know
the true, the sacred passion for justice. Perhaps only they are
indifferent to everything save truth, they who know the greatest truth
of all.
And Artois saw Maurice Delarey, the gay, the full-blooded youth, grown
stern in the halls of death, unable to be at peace until she who had
most loved him knew him at last as he had been in life.
As no one else would tell Hermione the truth, the dead man himself,
speaking through his son, the fruit of his sin, had told her the truth
that day.
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