Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/129

 peace that she had shared with the kid that cropped the pasture, with the arum that was curled within its green spathe.

She was thankful beyond words because at last some hope had come for him. Yet a deep sorrow took possession of her soul as she realised the burden bound upon her; tears rose in her eyes and veiled the carnation of the morning skies. She did not reason on it, but she felt that vast irreparable loss which no treasures of the world, or passions, or joys can adequately pay—the loss of youth's unconsciousness.

Never again could she go light-hearted to the shore to wade amidst the sea things, glad as they; never again would she come back over the brown moor in the hush of evening, content because a meal of chestnuts or a few wild figs had been her day's sufficient gleaning.

The unconscious life—the life that is content with itself from sunrise until sunset from the mere sense of living, from the sheer sweet strength and health of the body that is fleet as the roe and tireless as the swallow—was gone for ever; and in its stead were the unrest, the bitterness, the pangs, the ecstasies of human affections.