Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/63

 her eyes on that fresh flowering grass, those deep cool shadows of the pines. Yet now and then it all came back upon her as it did now, clear as a dream of the night, and then the sea would fade away, and the sands recede, and the misty scorching dust-grey shores grow dim to her, and her eyes would only be dry because she had grown too old to weep. And when she slept, it was of these she dreamed almost always; above all, in the stifling midnights of the terrible canicular heat, when the air was like steam, and the soil was like brass, and there was no freshness or peace in the darkness, and with its fall no dews.

She felt for the brigand's image in her bosom, and drew it out and looked at it; then walked to the first house that lay in her way.

They seemed all empty. There was not a sound, except the soughing of wind in the tops of the pines.

She called, and no one answered. She shouted again and again, but her voice died on the mountain stillness unanswered. Then she pushed open a door and looked inside. The houses were little more than stone huts, and they were all deserted; hastily