Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/161

 For the time she did not even realise that what she would do was base. She only remembered that he was hers, that if the world took him he would be hers no more.

Yet, though she was not fully conscious of the treachery she meditated, all the speed and gladness with which hitherto she had always flown homeward to him had gone from her heart and from her feet.

She went on more slowly than her wont across the grass; unwillingness to look upon his face had taken the fleetness from her steps. Without her consciousness of it, this secret which she would keep, this wrong that she meant to do, was already a barrier between herself and him.

When she had drawn quite near the myrtle-brake above the place of the tomb, she stopped, and for the first time in all her life she trembled. If he should read what she had seen upon her face!

With a desperate hand she pushed away the brambles and went down into their place of refuge.

Even here in the heart of the soil the heat had penetrated. The air even underground was heavy and warm, and with little power