Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/243

 'I only wish to serve you, if I can,' he said humbly, and trembling as no danger of the deep seas had ever made him tremble.

'You cannot,' she said, with her face still hidden from him. 'But go, go. It hurts me to speak and being spoken to; I am best alone.'

He lingered, torn in two by his grief and his love for her. It had been wild love, born of a glance, of a word, of a glimpse of dark eyes on a summer morning that shed its light on a beautiful face that had been fixed on his heart for evermore; but it was faithful love, ready to do and to dare all things.

He only hesitated here because he knew not what to do.

'I will go since you wish it,' he said at last. But I shall be always in Orbetello, and I will do what I can. I think they must soon set you free. You have harmed no one. You have offended the law, perhaps, but so innocently, and no law of God or nature, but only the trumpery vexatious rule of man. I am sure soon they must set you free; but if they do not, bars have been sawn through ere now, and stouter ones than these, and there is the sea