Читать книгу A Furnace of Earth онлайн

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The thought bit her. She reached up and snatched down the belt, pressing the clasp tightly with her cheek in the curve of her shoulder, repeating dumbly to herself the pious “Ora pro anima sua” that stood before her eyes.

A far crackling struck across her mood, and hastily drawing the belt about her waist, she leaned sideways from the upright beam, raising her hand quickly, as if to put back the lawless meshes of her hair. She heard the sound of a confident step, crunching on the marly sand, and the swish of bent-back bushes. It was coming in a direct line toward her. There was a dry clatter of falling fence-rails, as though the intruder, disdaining obstacles, preferred to walk through them.

She caught a glimpse of a familiar, bright-colored scarf between the glimmering, leafy tangles, and then the thrust of a quick spring, and an instant later the figure that had vaulted the heavy fence came dropping, feet foremost, through the snapping screen of brambles, and walked straight toward the spot where she had risen to her feet with a little glad cry.