Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/250

 rough oaten bread with good appetite, whilst she gave a roll of wheaten flour to Este and a draught of wine in the ivory skyphos.

'I thought you always hid yourself from all eyes,' said Este with some anger, as he looked suddenly at her. 'You must have stayed to converse with this man since you know whence he came.'

'I had talked to him in the summer-time. He means no harm; only he must not see you, though I do not think he would speak and tell of you; do not come so near the entrance as you were to-day.'

Este was silent. A new sense stirred in him that was almost a jealous anger. When she was away all through the long hours he had never thought of her as seeing or being seen by any human creature; he knew she hid herself from the shepherd, from the hunter, from the cattle-keeper, from the charcoal-burner, and he had thought these were the only men that ever passed over the moors or came down to the marshes, and that these were scattered and met with but rarely. All in a moment, as he heard her speak of meeting a stranger on the shore, he became suddenly alive to that great personal