Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/113

 He was not content; that was the only shadow on her path. He was restless, weary often, often impatient of the restraint, the tedium, the emptiness, of all his days.

If she could see his face and feel his touch, all the world could have added nothing to her joy; but with him it was otherwise. His short-lived passion, violent for the time, burnt itself out quickly. What he wanted was to walk among the cities of men, to go whither he would, to hear the laughter of the streets, to move and roam, and like and hate, and change and choose, and lead the life that others led—in a word, to be free.

His captivity was like an eternal night for ever about him. For others the sun shone and the world turned, but he ate his heart out here; and the gloom of his destiny was so great that it even stole from him all warmth out of her cheek, all delight out of her caress, and made her seem to him but a portion of the interminable weariness that enveloped him.

She was beautiful always, and to him most tender; and the humility of a proud nature has in it a homage the most sincere and the most exquisite in flattery that