Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/271

 The tears sprang into her eyes, and the music of his voice thrilled through her.

She did not care to wait for the words that she knew would follow as his fingers stole and clasped hers close, and she felt on her the gaze she did not dare to meet. She rose, and glanced to the west.

"The sun is just gone behind the hills. I shall be late. Will you tell them to bring me Saïd?'

He rose, too, and did not oppose her departure.

"I rode here myself, fortunately," he said. "You must allow me to go with you into Moralia; the roads are bad and hard to find."

They brought Saïd out of the great wooden sweet-smelling outhouse, and he raised her in silence to her saddle. He gave her a little knot of the fragrant leafless calycanthus with a few sprays of myrtle; she put it in her bosom; it was already dusk, and he saw the softened dimness of her eyes.

They rode down together in the declining light through the winding ways of the outlying country into, the town; it was quite dark when