Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/285

 'You will hurt no one?' she said, touched to a vague anxiety at his aspect.

'I will never hurt you,' he answered her, with a tenderness deep as her own when she breathed Este's name.

'Lay your hand on my forehead one moment,' he said a little later, 'and wish me my sins forgiven.'

He stooped to her as he spoke.

She hesitated a brief while; then she made the sign of the cross on his brow, and rested her hand on it an instant as he had asked.

'I wish you well,' she said softly, 'I wish you well on earth, and after death may God be merciful to you. I bless you, for you sent me him!'

Saturnino rose erect, with a curse; his face lost in one moment its fleeting gentleness, and grew black as a night in tempest.

'Do I owe your touch to his memory?' he said savagely through his ground teeth.

Then he gazed at her once more; furiously, longingly, thirstily; and without other words turned his face from her and went out into the open day.

Once he looked back.