Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/235

 the noon they passed the early morning on the surface, catching insects and infusoria. The sun was not yet up, and it was cool; yet all the landscape was pale, grey, and weary-looking as if the night had brought little repose and little freshness.

It was a toilsome journey; it seemed to her to be endless. Midway in it the sun rose, and the touch of its rays on her bare arms felt like fire. In the great heats even sunrise loses its charm, and seems but a trouble the more to the tired eyes that wake from startled sleep and wasting sweats.

With pain and effort she dragged herself ashore at last, three hours after she had left the pier of Santa Tarsilla, and began her toilsome walk through the close-growing timber and thorny thickets up to the tomb. Her head swam, her sight began to fail, her limbs felt heavy as lead; but the thought of the faith that she kept, of the succour she went to give, sustained her.

'He will not doubt now,' she thought. 'He will be glad.'

She had brought away with her, as well as the knife, three silver coins that had been given her once by a traveller whom she had guided across the marshes; they