Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/49

 in the gloom of the tombs, she was as utterly away when only a few yards distant as when out upon the sea or in some seashore town. Never dared he rise and go and scan the horizon to watch her coming. She was absent; that was all he knew. He, too, though he had read nothing of the poet drowned down northward by Lericia, began to find her 'icy flame.'

The love of her, at first mere jealous fuming, began at once to chill and to consume him.

'Why are you so cruel?' he muttered once, as he stayed her as she passed by him. She had some yellow crocuses in her hands; she was going to put them in a vase of water before Joconda's coffin.

'Are those in the fields already?' he said, touching them. 'Is it another year, then?'

'Yes. Do you forget? I told you February had come.'

'Did you? What is it to me? Here, all months are alike. Shipwrecked men lose count of time.'

He held her hand with the crocuses in it still within his own, his fingers on her wrist.