Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/149

 He looked at her and let her go in silence.

He was ashamed and afraid to tell her that he doubted her. Even his dazed mind could see that there was no treachery in those clear fearless eyes. Yet all the time she was absent he would doubt her; strain his ear at every sound, and whet his dagger, the only weapon he had.

She put her herbs in a great frail basket, took the few articles she had made with the reeds and the canes, swung them across her back, and stepped out for the shore.

It was a grand autumnal morning, steeped in the colour and the moisture of late autumn.

The grass was embrowned with the red-brown feathers of the graceful sanquinella and the fairy-like sprays of the tremolino, and every moss-grown nook was painted delicately with the exquisite colour of the tender cyclamen-flowers hanging over the moist autumnal earth, leafless, and looking like rose-tinted shells. The golden stars of the dandelions were gleaming everywhere, and above the blossoms of the ivy