Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/272

 that is what you mean, you say truly; and you should know by that to hold your peace and not to importune me.'

'I do not wish to importune you,' said Sanctis in his turn, a little moved from his long patience; 'but the wishes of the dead are sacred—to me at the least. A woman, now dead, wrote to her brothers on your behalf, and I am their representative. As I have their name and their fortune, so I have their duties. I should be unworthy of them if I refused to accept the last as well as the first. You are too young to know what perils you run, what a frightful future you prepare for yourself. If you will not hear me willingly, I must try what aid the law will give me. Before the law you are an outcast, and it would deprive you of independence, it would regard your dwelling-place as nothing better than the owl's hole or the fox's earth; it would certainly compel you to accept some other asylum. If I go to the authorities of Orbetello'

He paused in words which he was using as his last resource without fully knowing what they meant, or how far they would lead him; for Musa, as she stood before him, suddenly changed from a listening,