Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/294

 had felt for his; it was the only sure friend that either of them trusted. She drew the breezy autumn air more deeply into her lungs, that she might get strength from it as men do from draughts of wine. She walked on, keeping in his path as surely as his shadow did, watching with untiring eyes every movement that he made; now losing him perforce from sight as the ground he traversed sank beneath the bushes, regaining sight of him as he emerged from the scrub of myrtle, of oak, or of olive, and climbed some rugged steep over which the bridle-path ran.

She marvelled that he dared be out thus in open daylight; but he trusted to his disguise in part, and in part to the fact that the State believed him in Sardinia, and hunted him no more, letting sleeping dogs lie as the proverb bade them do. In truth they were not unwilling that he should thus escape; his name had once been like a trumpet-call to all Maremma, and they were content that he should get away and trouble the law no more. He had suffered sixteen years of the galleys; to all the populace this seemed punishment enough, too much in truth, for a bold, open-handed son of the soil who had