"Perhaps. I couldn't hear. It was such a murmur."

"And you only moved a little? How stupid of me to think you were getting
up to go away!"

"When one is half asleep one has odd ideas often."

He did not tell her that he had been getting up softly, hoping to steal
away to the mountain-top and destroy the fragments of her letter, hidden
there, while she slept.

"You won't mind," he added, "if I go down to bathe this evening. I
sha'n't sleep properly to-night unless I do."

"Of course--go. But won't it be rather late after tea?"

"Oh no. I've often been in at sunset."

"How delicious the water must look then! Maurice!"

"Yes?"

"Shall I come with you? Shall I bathe, too? It would be lovely,
refreshing, after this heat! It would wash away all the dust of the
train!"

Her face was glowing with the anticipation of pleasure. Every little
thing done with him was an enchantment after the weeks of separation.

"Oh, I don't think you'd better, Hermione," he answered, hastily.
"I--you--there might be people. I--I must rig you up something first, a
tent of some kind. Gaspare and I will do it. I can't have my wife--"

"All right," she said.

She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.