Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/188



N the seventh morning there came across the moors the shadows of a man and of a mule. Standing, looking with tearless, aching eyes along those sunburnt levels over which he had gone, her heart gave a leap of rapture and her face grew warm with blood as she saw a human figure through the haze of heat. He had come back!

Soon that joy, too exquisite to live longer than a breath, was broken roughly. It was a stranger who stood beside the laden mule, his face and figure were unknown to her. She dropped back into her attitude of crouching hopeless apathy. What was any pedlar or other traveller across the plains to her?