Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/57

 charm which hung about her as its fragrance clings to the dried calycanthus.

He would willingly, without a single selfish motive or ignoble thought, have done for her at any cost any service; but since she only saw in the outstretched hand of friendship the grasp of the gaoler, he knew not what to do.

'I am near my end; save the child from the sins she has inherited, from the loneliness in which I leave her,' Joconda had written to her brothers; and this their descendant was almost morbidly anxious to fulfil her prayer. When he had received that letter sent by a dead woman to his father's father, his imagination had been stirred by the few words that spoke with a yearning fear of this storm-bird on the southern seashore.

He was rich in most of the blessings of life, and his name was already illustrious; love of the arts lent their beauty to his days, and wherever he went men welcomed him.

He was a man often lonely amidst troops of friends, and a man to whom the thought of duty was not irksome but readily welcome. It had seemed to him so simple a thing to