Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/278

 fatigued movements which now nearly always replaced her once vigorous and agile animation.

He leaned against the stone wall where the dancing-boys and the lotus-flowers were painted and rested his gaze on her timidly, as a dog looks that loves and is yet afraid of a blow from the hand he would caress.

'You sheltered Este?' he said suddenly.

The little colour that there was in her face faded out of it utterly.

'I did,' she answered coldly.

'You fed him, you tended him, you succoured him, you loved him, you gave him all you had to give; and when they set him free he left you and forgot you—is it not so?'

She lifted her face; it was as cold as marble, and as stern.

'When I blame him, then may you. Leave his name alone.'

'I sent him to you—I!'

'It is for that I bid you break my bread,' she said, with so great and exquisite a tenderness melting the coldness of her voice that it thrilled even the savage and brutalised soul of Saturnino.

He said nothing; he was thinking of that