Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/283

 He would take his life in his hand, he thought, and go out and wander alone, and leave her in ignorance. He would avenge her: that was all he had to do with her.

She, forgetful of him, sat on the stone seat; her head drooping, her hands crossed on her knee.

He looked at her, and said to himself that this one good deed he would do ere he died, he would keep silence; he would not speak in weakness and self-pity, as a woman would have spoken.

He would avenge her; and life might blossom afresh for her. When the summer is young, if the spikenard and the balm are mown down with the grass, they send forth new blooms from the bleeding roots. So he thought.

He leaned against the stone of the wall, and forgot that he was an outlaw and a hunted felon. He only remembered that he was her father, and, so, Este's judge.

He saw the face of her lover as it had been with him in the twilight of the woods, in the scorch of the sunlight on the sea, a beautiful, proud, pensive face, like one of Signorelli's angels; and he stretched his hands out, his sinewy hands, with their