Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/327

Rh longing for the perfume and the colour and the southern winds of her home in the Vega, while the Border moors stretched round her, and the Cheviots shut her in until she died, like a tropic bird, caged in cold and in twilight. A softness, inherited from the tenderness and the enthusiasm of her southern blood, was latent in her son, little as he knew it; an unworldliness and trustfulness were in his nature, though he did not perceive them; and though his career had done much to strengthen the lion-like daring and athlete's hardihood of his character, on the other hand the picturesque colouring and varied wandering in which his years had been spent had done much to preserve the vein of romance within him, unworn while unsuspected. Nothing had touched this side of his nature until now; and now, the stronger for its past suppression, it conquered him in its turn, and ruled alone.

When he left her that evening he could not sleep; he rode far and fast through the late night, dashing down into the interior, along sandy plains, and through cypress groves, across stretches of tangled vegetation, and over the rocky beds of dried-up brooks, or the foam of tumbling freshets. The swift rush through the cooled air soothed the fever in