Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/102

 enter, and the free nature has lifted itself to the light, knowing nothing of and caring nothing for the bonds of custom and of prejudice with which men have paralysed and cramped themselves, calling the lower the higher law.

She was as innocent as the doe was in the brakes, knowing no will but its forest lord's. Her pride had melted into willing submission as the night's frost of the Maremma dissolved before the kiss of the sun-rays at morning.

'It is not as though he were free as other men are,' she said in her communion with the memory of Joconda. 'I am all he has. Even you would never have bid me leave him.'

She longed to have delicate apparel that she might seem the fairer before him; she was tempted to set the golden grasshopper upon her bosom that she might look the lovelier to him; she would put flowers at her throat; she would take the sweet smell of the broken bay leaves on her hands; she would say to the sunbeams that could not enter the tomb, 'O come in with me that my hair may have your light!' and she would cry to the birds amongst the blossoming trees, 'O tell