Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/222

 She was heaved into the cart by the ropes that tied her limbs; her feet hung over the rail, her head and body were on the hard wood; she was used as they used a young heifer.

They thought her something unnatural and unearthly; they dreaded the evil eye; they had no mercy, and their director hovered round her, tightening a rope with unction, or knotting her hair upon a nail, in vengeance for that gold he had not found. It hurt her more when they touched her bare feet, or their rough movements unloosened the linen off her breast.

All her beauty was Este's, for these to look on it was treachery to him.

To her own fate she was almost callous. He had gone, and she was driven from the place where he had been, and where every stone, every leaf, every grain of sand, seemed to speak to her of him; it was indifferent to her what else befell her. If they broke her on the wheel as they did the saints of old, she would not suffer more than she had done when she had heard his footsteps go away so willingly, so lightly, over the scorched turf.

The oxen moved on; the ponderous