Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/140

 strong green wood of robur- and sugher-oak into black sticks and shreds of charcoal. Nothing tasted to him welcome or good; it was the sickness of his own palate that would have found disgust in nectar and wormwood in the honey of the moorland thyme-fed bee.

But she did not know that this was but the inevitable result of the blood-poisoning he had suffered; she thought it was because she had only water for him to drink, only such poor simple food to give to him; and she was distressed beyond any power of her own to express the infinite sorrow she felt at her own poverty, her own incapacity to help him better. All this time she never asked him one question as to himself.

Instinctive in her, as his courage is in the boar, and his gladness in the nightingale, was the sense of the sanctity of a fugitive and a guest, and of the shame that would lie in taking advantage of power to force confidence. She longed very greatly to know his history, to learn what woman had brought him to such a pass, but no word of inquiry or hint of one ever passed her lips. He had said that he was guiltless, and she