Then she put one hand on his shoulder, bent down
and touched his forehead with her lips.
And in that kiss the dead man was forgiven.
EPILOGUE
On a radiant day of September in the following year, from the little
harbor of Mergellina a white boat with a green line put off. It was
rowed by Gaspare, who wore his festa suit, and it contained two
people, a man and a women, who had that morning been quietly married.
Another boat preceded theirs, going towards the island, but it was so
far ahead of them that they could only see it as a moving dot upon the
shining sea, when they rounded the breakwater and set their course for
the point of land where lies the Antico Giuseppone.
Gaspare rowed standing up, with his back towards Hermione and Artois
and his great eyes staring steadily out to sea. He plied the oars
mechanically. During the first few minutes of the voyage to the island
his mind was far away. He was a boy in Sicily once more, waiting
proudly upon his first, and indeed his only, Padrona in the Casa del
Prete on Monte Amato.
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