Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/65

 Gorgona will be less pain to me than where you are.'

She gave a quick sigh, and without answer took up the bale of homespun cloth and mounted the steps of the entrance.

When she parted the boughs and emerged into the open air the glory of a dazzling morning was sparkling all around her on the brimming waters and the dewy earth.

A hare was peacefully nibbling at the grass; a jay was swaying on a bough and meditating his own homeward flight; further away in the distance, against the light, there was a pretty group of a mare and two foals; down in the dark green rosemary bushes at her feet a pair of green grossbeaks, hardly to be told from the shrub, were pecking in play at one another.

'If only he could come into the air!' she thought with passionate pain.

What use are the most loving eyes of others to the blind shut in the impenetrable darkness of their own calamity?

She could do for him what the sister, or wife, or daughter does for the blind man; she could watch for peril for him, bring him food, labour that he should live; but