Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/182

 money to offer as a bribe, and the crime of which he had been accused was one for which any country would surrender him up to undergo his sentence in his own land.

'You are very good to me,' he said with emotion as he saw her rake together the embers of the fire and begin to prepare his evening meal.

'I do not know that!' said Musa, and turned on him her luminous eyes that were like those of Carlo's divine messengers. 'I am sorry for you, and you have no one else.'

For the first time, the glance of her eyes startled him into perception of her as a young girl.

'Are you not afraid to come and go like this, alone?'

'I have my knife,' she said curtly; then, tired as she was, she turned away to light wood for a fire, and put the meat she had brought into water, making graceful this homely work by her own simplicity and grace as women did in days of old, when great Demeter herself thought household cares no shame.

He sat by the blazing wood and cones of pine and watched her; for the first time