Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/250

Rh to him. Then at a sudden recollection she withdrew it, and she smiled with her old serene indifference.

"You will talk to me in unknown tongues! S. Justina was a holy woman; I am not. I am not sure that I ever did any unselfish thing in all my life. How many violets there are;—gather me some."

The others drew near; he left her and gathered the violets. They were countless; the old church was left alone to perish; no foot of priest or worshipper now ever trod upon their purple glories.

She leaned over the low wall of the grave-yard, and watched the setting sun. She felt that her eyes were full of tears,

"If I had met him earlier" she thought.

They walked down through the olive thickets, along the grassy slopes of the hill, to the carriage, and drove home in the now waning light.

She was capricious, contemptuous, ironical, arrogant, in everything she said, lying back with the furs covering her from the chill evening winds. R 2