Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/142

131, the Bourbon government will not spate you even for your country's sake. You will have rendered yourself liable to the law for assisting the escape of condemned 'conspirators' and 'insurgents,' as the Court terms them, and you will share the fate they suffer."

The words were almost cold, but uttered with a visible effort; in the instant, even though the urgency of peril for those she sought to save, and the motive for which she bade him expose himself to this risk at her command, excused it to her, she loathed herself for sending him out to chance the slightest danger in fealty to a love that would never bring him anything except its pain. Indeed, his life was dearer to her than she, disdainful of all such weakness, yet would know.

He raised himself erect.

"I have given you my word; I am not used to weigh the hazards of any dangers that may accrue to me through keeping it."

She answered him nothing; the implicit obedience this man was ready to render her, even to the rendering up of his life or liberty at her word, moved her the more deeply beside the bold honour and the fearless independence of his carriage towards men, such as now flashed out even to her in his