Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/245

 sands that he had thus been led to fasten his fancy on her.

He waited a little while in hope that she might answer him, that the hint of escape might at the least rouse some flutter of the old bold spirit in her. But he waited in vain. She was ready, indeed, to escape by any means of her own, in any way, at any hour of the night or day, but she did not accept his help. It seemed to her, without her reasoning out her instinct, that to take any benefit from any man was in a measure to be false to her lover.

He waited with beating heart and longing ear; but she said nothing.

'It is best to see what one can do, without, with all these brutes,' he thought, and turned to go.

'You will know I am always ready,' he said softly; and then the gaoler repeated his summons, and the door unclosed and he passed through it and was gone.

She did not even look up once.

Daniello Villamagna went out of the gloomy place into the intense light of the noonday that was shining on the salt lagoon till it glistened like a mirror of steel.

His shrewd sense told him that his first