And she was right.
Our Lady be praised for it!" And his dark eyes glanced upward with a devout gesture of thanksgiving.
I looked at him with a sort of jealous hunger gnawing at my heart.

Here was another self deluded fool--a fond wretch feasting on the unsubstantial food of a pleasant dream--a poor dupe who believed in the truth of woman! "You are a happy man," I said with a forced smile; "you have a guiding star for your life as well as for your boat--a woman that loves you and is faithful?
is it so ?" He answered me directly and simply, raising his cap slightly as he did so.
"Yes, signor--my mother." I was deeply touched by his naive and unexpected reply--more deeply than I cared to show.

A bitter regret stirred in my soul--why, oh, why had my mother died so young! Why had I never known the sacred joy that seemed to vibrate through the frame, and sparkle in the eyes of this common sailor! Why must I be forever alone, with a curse of a woman's lie on my life, weighing me down to the dust and ashes of a desolate despair! Something in my face must have spoken my thoughts, for the captain said, gently: "The signor has no mother ?" "She died when I was but a child," I answered, briefly.
The Sicilian puffed lightly at his cigarette in silence--the silence of an evident compassion.

To relieve him of his friendly embarrassment, I said: "You spoke of Teresa?
Who is Teresa ?" "Ah, you may well ask, signor! No one knows who she is; she loves Carmelo Neri, and there all is said.

Such a little thing she is--so delicate! like a foam-bell on the waves; and Carmelo--You have seen Carmelo, signor ?" I shook my head in the negative.
"Ebbene! Carmelo is big and rough and black like a wolf of the forests, all hair and fangs; Teresa is, well! you have seen a little cloud in the sky at night, wandering past the moon all flecked with pale gold ?--that is Teresa.