Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/39

 'Why did you look for me?' she said curtly.

'The letter asked Joachim to befriend you if she died; I thought I ought to do what he would have done.'

'That was kind.'

'If it were I have more than my reward."

The flattery passed by her unseen, making no more imprint than the dew as it rolls off a cabbage-leaf.

'I do not see why you should care,' she said at length; meaning what she said.

'But I did care,' he said with some anger. He did not add, 'because Joconda said that you were beautiful, and alone, and I love all beautiful things, and I pity all lonely ones.'

She stood silent, looking at him, musing.

'Come to her,' she said abruptly and yet with a great tenderness in her voice; and she motioned him to follow her into the chamber where the coffin of poplar-wood lay in the twilight of mother earth.

She knelt down by it and kissed the rough wood.

'Dear and good friend,' she murmured,