Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/56

 'Those are words,' said Este with impatience. 'Kiss me once, and I will believe'

The colour came up over her throat and cheeks and brow; a tremor went over her.

'I promised her, and she is dead,' she said wistfully, while her voice was low and grave.

He flung himself away from her in wayward wrath.

'You place an old lifeless hag before me, and you dare to say you love me!' he cried with a child's petulance and a man's furious injustice.

'You hurt me!' she murmured, with an unconscious cry of pain. He wounded her, stung her, bewildered her, tortured her; and yet she did not turn on him. She only vaguely felt that she had been to blame, and that he was too harsh in punishment and hurt her.

Este did not answer.

He did not even look at her; he picked up his rude modelling tools and set a mass of the river clay on the slab of nenfro where he usually worked.

She watched him awhile, in wistful silence, as a dog chastised watches its