Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/44

 wind on my face, whenever I choose. I am content. In summer time it is too hot perhaps, and they say the steam of the marshes is bad to breathe, though never has it hurt me; but to live here is good, so good! I do not know what cities may be like, but I know that I will never go to one. Men and women make me angry, cruel, wicked; I never am with them that they do not; they are so mean, they are so cowardly, they are so greedy. But here I am content, and I think, wherever she is, she is content with me.'

Maurice Sanctis was silent; he was moved by that intense and reverent remembrance of the dead woman; he was bewildered at this creature's absolute ignorance of her own physical charm, and of the passions and the hopes that agitate humanity, and illuminate for youth its visions of love. He was loth to disturb her repose. Besides, he saw that he would speak to her in an unknown tongue; he saw that she was a child entirely in thought and feeling.

The early hours of the morning grew warmer, and the noon chimes swung drowsily in many a belfry in little villages upon the shore and on the plains; Sanctis remained there in the shadow of the burial