Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/92

Rh great cedar, the horses browsed and rested, with broad shadows flung upon them cool and dark; all the fantastic foliage ran riot like a forest of the tropics; here and there an oriole flashed, like gold in the sun; here and there the rich green of a lizard gianced among the grasses; all else was still and motionless, steeped in the sensuous lull of southern heat.

In such a day, in such a scene, danger and pain were forgot, as though they had no place on earth; they were alone; the young peasant-child went hillwards after her single goat; there was not a sound or a sign of other life than theirs, and the oblivion of passion was upon them both; they ceased to remember that they were fugitives—they only knew that they were together.

They spoke very rarely; she let the past, with all its mystery and all its bitterness, drift away forgotten. To the future neither looked; it might lead to the dungeon or the scaffold. They lived in the present hour alone, as those who love do ever live, in the first abandonment and usurpation of their passion.

Once she looked down at him where he lay at her feet, and passed her hand among his hair.

"Does the earth hold another man capable of such