Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/67

 ways? More pity. Well, I will tell you. The wild goose will very likely walk and fly with your tame ones when they are out on the open grass lands; perhaps he will even go with them part of their road home; but never will you get him to enter with them. Never. When he sees a house-wall he gets up upon his wings and goes away upon the air.'

He saw that he had no effect upon her, took no more hold on her than the water takes upon the glossy laurel leaf, or the plumes of the coot.

'Let her stay!' he thought, angrily; 'she will go away with the Sicilian sailor, no doubt, sooner or later; she will be happier so than amidst culture and repose.'

His heart revolted from leaving her here all alone in the twilight of the sepulchres, and upon the wildness and vastness of the moors. But he saw that if he pressed her more she would very likely say nothing, but go and hide; that if he remained in the Maremma to return and urge her afresh she would very likely on the morrow be flown, as the hunted snipe flies to new willows and to strange waters, thinking its familiar pool deceived it.