Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/192

 knot of flowers at the bars, and a lamp behind them; if all were dark, I stole away and hid amongst the reeds. So three years went by—you do not seem to understand! We were happy; we would have had nothing otherwise. All the stillness, and the gloom, and the hush of the close streets, and the noiseless pathways of the waters, all seemed made to make our lives the sweeter and the closer-knit. You do not seem to understand—you have never loved any one?'

'Only Joconda.'

'Joconda! I speak to you, then, in an unknown tongue. We were happy. Three summers went by. One night in August I rowed under her wall. The lamp was in the window behind the knot of jessamine and datura. The cord hung down from the bars; I tied my boat, and moored it as usual. As usual I swung myself up the rope, and entered her room by loosening one bar of the grating, which we had filed through long before. Whenever I shut my eyes, in thought or sleep, I see the pale, wide waters, the waving reeds, the white light of the full moon; I hear the hooting of the mosquito-clouds, the lap of the water on the wall, the great bells of the city which