Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/207

Rh little cold water held to a stranger's lips! It is not worth a thought."

"It was worth my life, and with my life I will pay it, if you will take the payment, he it made in what guise it may."

They were no empty words of courteous requital; they were an oath to the death, if need be; she was silent, while her glance dwelt on him where he stood, reared now to his full stature, in the amber flood of the lamps, the snowy folds of the burnous flung back, and on his face a grandeur from the stormy passions an instant ago lashed to their height, silent with the eager light with which he looked on her. Then she held her hand out to him, with the beautiful impulse of a proud and gracious nature, touched and bending with a sovereign grace.

"I thank yon for your words. There is no question of debt now; they more than pay the little I could do to serve yon in your peril. We cannot meet as strangers; let us part as friends." The words were even in their gentleness, a sign of dismissal. He had broken in on her abruptly, and the night was late. He bowed low over her hand—as we bow over that of an Empress.

"Part! True;—I come unbidden here; I have no right to linger in your presence; but we cannot