Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/317

Rh deeply and painfully, while her eyes followed mechanically the flight of "white-winged gulls, as they swept in a bright cloud above the water. The reproaches that had been uttered to her a few hours before still had their sting for her, the truths with which they had been barbed still pierced her. Proud, fearless, negligent, superbly indifferent to the world's opinion, contemptuous of its censure as she was careless of its homage, she still was not steeled against the accusation of her own heart and conscience. She was no sophist, no coward; she could look at her own acts and condemn them with an unsparing truth; though haughtily disdainful of all censure, she tore down the mask from her own errors, and looked at them fully, face to face, as they were. Erred she had, gravely, passing on from the slighter to the deeper, in that course which is almost inevitable, since no single false step ever yet could be taken alone.

The brightest chivalry, the noblest impulses, the most unquestioning self-sacrifice, the most headlong devotion, these had all been wakened by her, and lavished on her;—what had she done with them? Accepted them, to turn them to her tools; excited them, to make them her slaves and her creatures; won them and wooed them with sorceress charm to