Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/67

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IN MAREMMA.
59

caged eagle? Did she indeed give him a stone when he craved bread?

A vague, heavy sense of wrong done by her to him went with her over the broad moors and meadows, and along the shining sands of the shores.

She got her boat out and pushed it into the water and loosened her little sail.

The wind was favourable to her, and the boat danced buoyantly on its southward way. But her heart was heavy as lead.

When the swell of the Sasso Scritto rose up between her and her moors, she felt as if she had bade him farewell for ever.

For once she had no eyes for the gannets gathering above the sea for their northward flight, for the rock-martins flying along the face of the cliff, for the sandpipers tripping amongst the samphire of the shore, for the curlews screaming above the estuary.

She had told him the truth.

She only saw him wherever she went.

No one would buy her cloth at any reasonable price at Telamone; she knew what she ought to get for it, and was unwilling to sell it for too little. Most of the people there were poor, and the few who were not so were mean. She saw nothing