Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/273

 so much she was thankful. She clung to her home underground as the stormy petrel clings to hers.

Without it she would have strayed, miserably and helplessly, as the rooks do for awhile, when their elm-trees are felled and their nests destroyed. After awhile the rooks go and make their home elsewhere, but she could never have done that; here alone was memory close about her, here alone had love been with her.

She began her life again with something of her old intrepidity, and infinite relief in the peaceful sense of silence round her. She had not a penny in the world; she had only her two hands with which to maintain herself. There was some store of oats and other things which had escaped the notice of the men, and were safe from the quest of rats in an old coffer which she had brought there on the mule's back long before on the day after Joconda's burial. There was also a little store of rice, beans, coffee, and some wine, which had been put there by the Sicilian when he had persuaded the old steward to allow her the use of the tombs. There was enough to live on for some few weeks; she looked no further. She would