Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/183

 sensible of her beauty, for the first time also grateful for all she did for him.

It was she who gathered the wood and the fir apples; it was she who cut the dry heather to keep for fuel; it was she who fished, who span, who worked in all ways, who brought heavy loads upon her shoulders and shared her refuge with him, disdaining any personal fear or harm. It seemed to him that he ought to rise and go out into the daylight amongst men at all peril rather than bring risk and toil upon a woman—a girl—thus.

She appeared to divine his thoughts, for she spoke to him across the stone chamber of the Lucumo:

'I do not know that it is safe for you to be in this first room. I heard to-day in Orbetello that there is a reward up for you, and they say soldiers have come anew to the fort at Santa Tarsilla; there never have been any there in my remembrance.'

He shivered a little.

'A reward? You saw it?'

'Yes, for you; it describes you. And Febo said to me—"If you see yon poor soul on your moorlands there are gold and silver to be made.