Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/192

 straggling, ill-shaped letters which were all she had been taught.

She wrote thus, with much labour, on a sheet of the paper,—'I am well. I want nothing. I am yours always; there is no need to say it. I send you back all the things you send because I wish not for gifts and have no need of money. I shall be always here. Think not of me save when you desire.'

Then she signed it tua eterna devota, and put it up in a packet with the bank-notes. His letter she thrust into her bosom.

She went up into the light; the messenger, who was an old servant of the house in Mantua, thought, as he saw the change in her face, 'Was the letter cruel? why did he not come himself?'

He had undone his burden, which was one of the great Italian nuptial caskets, velvet-studded and metal-bound. He had spread out upon the grass some of its contents. They were things of great delicacy and value; strings of pearls, fine raiment, eastern stuffs, jewels. At them she scarcely glanced.

'Put them all up,' she said to the messenger, 'and take them back to him and give