Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/271

Rh that was rebuke, yet proudly, distinctly, and beyond resistance. She followed the impulse, the caprice perhaps, of the moment without definite purpose or thought at all. For the last eight years men had never approached her save to love; it was a thousand-time told tale to her. If her heart had lost its freshness, or its pity, there could be little marvel in it, even though there were much blame.

The ohant of the Imaum rang up from the shore, deep-and sonorous; calling on the Faithful to prayer, an hour before midnight. She listened dreamily to the echoes that seemed to linger among the dark foliage.

"I like those national calls to prayer," she said, as she leaned over the parapet, while the fire-flies glittered among the mass of leaves as the diamond sprays glistened in her hair. "The Ave Maria, the Vespers, the Imaum's chant, the salutation of the dawn or of the night, the hymn before sleep, or before the sun;—you have none of those in your chill islands? Yon have only weary rituals, and stuccoed churches, where the 'Pharisees for a pretence make long prayers!' As if that was not the best—the only—temple!" She glanced upward at the star-studded sky, and