Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/75



FORTNIGHT, or a little more, after that curt farewell to Maurice Sanctis, when she was out cutting osiers far away from the tombs, the mule was stolen. When she came home, to fetch him to carry the osiers for her, he was missing from the stable she had made for him in the tombs with a cosy litter of moss and ling, and a plentiful ration of wild oats and grass. He was missing; and she knew in a moment that he had been stolen. He could not have slipped his halter and opened the stone doors himself.

'It is Zirlo!' she said between her tightshut lips. It could be no other than Zirlo.

She went out and saw the wet sand marked with the fresh impress of two little