Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/283

 promise,' said Musa: in such good faith the woman of Savoy had reared her.

'Well; think so. I do not; and you may trust me. I will speak to no one of you, or of the sepulchres that shelter you. But at the same time I do not promise you to renounce all effort to change you by my own persuasion if we meet in the neutral solitudes of these moors or on the shore. I do not promise yet to go away.'

'I cannot send you away,' she said, with the dusky fire of her eyes still luminous. 'But you will not come to me?'

'No; since I am unwelcome.'

She slipped her stiletto back into its hiding-place, and stooped and replaced the boughs and brambles on her head.

'That is enough,' she said. 'But it will be better that you should go—me you will never see.'

'You cannot prevent my seeing you abroad?'

She smiled a little at his stupidity.

'You will no more see me than you can see the dwarf-heron when he makes himself into the likeness of a dead stump and sits, all grey and brown, amongst the sedges. You do not know the wisdom of the woods.'