Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/328

 He kissed them as they fell; a poignant repentance made him ready to curse himself, though she would never curse him.

'I would not have come,' she murmured, 'you know that; you are sure of that? Only I feared he wished to hurt you, and I could warn you no other way. Oh love, oh my dear love! you do believe me? Never, never would I have come to remind you of—of'

'Of my debt,' he murmured. 'Ah, I believe! You are the most generous and the most pure of living souls, and I am the most base.'

'No, no,' she said softly, 'I am nothing; it was natural you should forget. You have the world now; you have no need of me. Never would I have come for any lesser thing than this.'

'How do you live?' he said, with his voice broken and hoarse.

He was ashamed; greatly ashamed.

'I live as we did,' she said simply, and thought she would not tell him of all her sufferings, lest he should hear in them a reproach.

'In the tombs? In those tombs still?'