Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/239

Rh blood. Had he had the mastery of his life so long only to yield it up now to break in a woman's hands? Had he believed in and followed the ideal of his dreams only to suffer through her, and be divorced from her at the last? He ground the butt of his rifle down into the loose black soil.

"It is too late now!" he said, unconsciously, aloud. "She saved my life; she shall claim it if she will. Come what may, I will believe in her."

It was a loyal and gallant oath, pledged to the sunburnt solitudes and the blue cloudless skies. Was she for whose sake it was sworn worthy of it? The world would have told him no, and, being questioned why, would have answered in three words: "She is Idalia."

Anything of doubt, of depression, of pain, that had mingled with the tumult of his thoughts through the day, swept far away when the hour came for him to go to her again. One of the Albanian men-servants ushered him through the hall and into the magnificent chamber, which, once the Odà of an Anderün, served now as the reception-room of the villa; the curtains were drawn back, the blaze of light dazzled his sight, and his eyes, eagerly