Hermione longed for quiet, for absolute silence.

It seemed strange to her that she still longed for anything--strange and
almost horrible, almost inhuman. But she did long for that, to be able to
sit beside her dead husband and to be undisturbed, to hear no voice
speaking, no human movement, to see no one. If it had been possible she
would have closed the cottage against every one, even against Gaspare and
Lucrezia. But it was not possible. Destiny did not choose that she should
have this calm, this silence. It had seemed to her, when fear first came
upon her, as if no one but herself had any real concern with Maurice, as
if her love conferred upon her a monopoly. This monopoly had been one of
joy. Now it should be one of sorrow. But now it did not exist. She was
not weeping for Maurice. But others were. She had no one to go to. But
others came to her, clung to her. She could not rid herself of the human
burden.

She might have been selfish, determined, she might have driven the
mourners out. But--and that was strange, too--she found herself pitying
them, trying to use her intellect to soothe them.

Lucrezia was terrified, almost like one assailed suddenly by robbers,
terrified and half incredulous. When her hysteria subsided she was at
first unbelieving.

"He cannot be really dead, signora!" she sobbed to Hermione. "The povero
signorino. He was so gay! He was so--"