Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/282

 sent your lover here, I have a thousand crimes upon my head, I am steeped in human blood; but I am yours, and you are mine: take me, hide me, pardon me, pity me!'

But something stronger than himself, more powerful even than this hunger for compassion and affection which possessed him, held him mute.

He had done her harm enough; why should he do her more injury?

The dead woman of Savoy had kept his secret faithfully; should he do less?

He, who never had stayed his tongue in cursing, or held his hand back from a blow, choked down the passionate desire in him and said to himself: 'Nay; why should she know?'

Why should she know?

Why should he lay his burden of foul sins upon the back of this, his lamb? It seemed to him that if he told her he would do the cruellest thing ever done in all his years of cruelty. He, who had hurled a traitor over the rocks like a mere bough of dead wood, and drawn his steel without a pause across the throats of harmless captives, dared not do this one last selfishness.