Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/380

Rh she felt as if her heart would break. He had gone through all those perils afar off, only to be dying there!

It was five o'clock by the convent chimes when they reached the crest of the hill on which the old place stood. The lovely hillside was covered with the blue and white of the wild hyacinths and gold of the wild daffodils. The lofty stone pines spread their dark green roofs above her head. Flocks of birds were singing, in the myrtle thickets, their sweet shrill evensong. The shining valley lay below like a cloud of amber light. The surpassing loveliness, the intense stillness of it all, made the anguish within her unbearable. What she had missed all her life long!

There was a chapel not far from the house set in the midst of the pines, with the cross on its summit touching the branches, and its doorway still hung round with the evergreens and flowers of its passed Easter feasts. There were men and women and children standing about on the turf in front of it; they were most of them crying bitterly.