Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/233

 her hard, toilworn, withered face, and her knotted hands and her rough white hair, and the sheaf of bleached palm blessed at Easter that hung above her bed to keep away evil spirits and to please the saints.

Musa looked at her with a great tenderness gleaming in her own eyes.

'I am going to rob her', she thought wistfully. 'But I will tell her in the morning, and if she be angry then I will sell my gold Madonnina and pay her. That will be just.'

Without arousing the sleeper she took a brown loaf, a flask of wine, and a knife.

Then she soothed Leone with a caress, and went as she had come, softly and unseen, drawing the stable shutter behind her carefully when she had gone forth again into the air. She was now very tired. But her spirit was strong and her will resolute. She never thought of not returning to the tomb. Not to keep faith with that friendless creature would have seemed to her most vile. She could not have told why, but when he had every man's hand against him it would have seemed to her vile and mean to desert him or betray him. 'To spare herself did not occur to her. She would go on, she said to herself; go on till she dropped down, per-