Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/114

 human nature holds. Yet she could never more than half console him; she could never so content him that he did not envy the brown-winged scops as it flew out at evening to wing its way over moor and marsh.

A chained creature grows cruel because of its own endless fret and pain.

He hid this from her as much as he could, conscious with shame of the ingratitude he could not control; and she was less quick to perceive it than she was to note other emotions in him, because her eyes were blinded with the celestial beauty of a love that asked for itself nothing more from earth or heaven than this life it had.

What: to her were privation, alarm, toil, solitude, danger, hunger even, so long as she could hear his voice or feel his touch? They were no more than the raindrops that fall on the leaves around are to the swallow nestled by her mate in the little warm house beneath the coping of the wall.

So time slipped away; and each week, each month, brought more strength and patience and infinite adoration to her love for him; and brought more fatigue, more