Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/289

 She thought not.

She remembered the gleam in his great black eyes when he had spoken Este's name, the steel-like gleam of an unquenchable hatred.

Some sinister motive must have brought the outlaw from those dark glades where he was safe from arrest unless the State sent soldiery swarming through the forests and over the mountains in greater numbers than it would ever spare for the mere sake of capturing a galley-slave; and her instinct told her that no motive would be ever so grave, no magnet ever so powerful, to the brigand of Santa Fiora as vengeance: such vengeance as can only quench its thirst in blood, such vengeance as on the soil of the Italiote has ever been held as justice and as holiness.

She could not tell what root his desire of vengeance sprang from; whether it were some fancied wrong long brooded over, some smouldering fire of antagonism, which had burst into flame in envy at Este's liberty; or whether it were some fantastic sense of amends owing from him to her, because, through him Este had first come to the shelter of the tombs; she had heard in days of her childhood the stories that were told