Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/329

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IN MAREMMA.
321

'Where else?' she said in wonder that he should ask.

'When I drink from what you called the skyphos that you drank out of,' she added simply, 'it seems almost as if you kissed me still———'

He leaned his face upon her breast to hide his shame.

'Whatever was I that you should adore me thus?' he cried. 'Nothing to you but a bringer of burden and shame.'

'I love you,' she murmured, with her old trouble at finding any words large enough to tell the great emotions that swelled her heart. Who that loves can ever find them?

She loved him, indeed, and he——

A passionate remorse was on him. Why had he been faithless, treacherous, more thankless than a cur that bit what fed it? Nay, he thought, no beast but what was human could ever have been ingrate thus.

Suddenly she freed herself from his embrace, and raised herself erect upon her couch.

'I will go now,' she said, all her soul in her eyes as they dwelt on his. 'I have saved you, I have seen you; night and day