Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/238

 mined clouds with the deep delight that poets know, to whom the forest or the moorland day had been one hymn of praise to nature, and who, amidst her deepest sorrow, had found that consolation in the solitudes of the wolds which nature keeps for those who love it perfectly, to her, a prison cell was every hour such misery as those know who, buried in haste, awake from their swoon to find the oak of the coffin, the stone of the vault, for ever between them and the living world.

The only thing that saved her from madness was that small square space in the wall through whose bars she could see a hand's breadth of the sky and water, and smell the salt glad scent of the sea.

The only thing that made her cling stubbornly to life was the faint hope, shut in silence in her own breast, that Este might hear, and come.