Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
be brave in order to be loved always—far away in a palace upon a hill above a blue sea. Then with a timid, tentative eagerness she murmured—
"Where is it? Where? Tell me that, Giovanni."
He opened his mouth and remained silent—thunderstruck.
"Not that! Not that!" he gasped out, appalled at the spell of secrecy that had kept him dumb before so many people falling upon his lips with unimpaired force. Not even to her. Not even to her. It was too dangerous. "I forbid thee to ask," he cried at-her, deadening cautiously the anger of his voice.
He had not regained his freedom. The spectre of the unlawful treasure arose, standing by her side like a figure of silver, pitiless and secret, with a finger on its pale lips. His soul died within him at the vision of himself creeping in presently along the ravine, with the smell of earth, of damp foliage in his nostrils—creeping in, determined in a purpose that numbed his breast, and creeping out again loaded with silver, with his ears alert to every sound. It must be done on this very night—that work of a craven slave!
He stooped low, pressed the hem of her skirt to his lips, with a muttered command:
"Tell him I would not stay," and was gone suddenly from her, silent, without as much as a footfall in the dark night.
She sat still, her head resting indolently against the wall, and her little feet in white stockings and black slippers crossed over each other. Old Giorgio, coming out, did not seem to be surprised at the intelligence as much as she had vaguely feared. For she was full
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