Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/185

 down the mountain paths out of the mist, and sad farewell to the great snow-peaks, the forests of pine, the green glacier waters tumbling through the ravine. She had never seen them since, nor any of her kindred. Letters had come once, now and then, in two or three years' time, but that was long ago, long ago; she had had but two brothers, and they had forgotten her, when once she was married, and far away over the southern sea.

It was of no use to think of them.

'Never hearken to the voice of a man that bears you away,' she would say to the unconscious child, as her memories drifted to that time, so long ago, when she had left her Alps for her lover's shores. He had been a true lover, indeed, that dark-eyed Maremmano, but he had perished before her eyes, and his boat had come in on the surf keel upward, and all the widow's jointure he had left her had been sorrow and disease and barren years, dry from grief as the shores were dry with the sand-bearing scirocco. If she had never known him, she would no doubt have lived and died amidst the peace and plenty of those A]pine farms.

'Love is a cruel thing,' she thought;