Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/207

 have made away with; but he is merciful, and so am I. and therefore we do not mean to hurt you: only out you go.'

She heard but dully. Only a few months earlier, and she would have fought for her refuge and her rights to it as a tigress may fight for her den; but now the spring of her life was broken, her courage was not gone, but was deadened; her whole spirit was sunk in hopeless apathy. Yet a great terror fell upon her. Without this home she would be desolate as the house-martin, who sees the wall that held his nest crumble into dust. For so long she had lived there, for so long each moment of the day had been given to some thought that centred in these familiar tombs. They had been hers, so entirely hers, borrowed in all humility and gratitude direct from the dead who were with God. Without them she would be not only homeless, but exiled from all she knew, from all she loved. No palace, had they given her one, would have been as dear to her as these hallowed chambers, shared with the lizard and the bat.

'There was gold in these tombs,' he said to her.

She answered him coldly: