Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/147

136 She looked at him, and a shadow of his own suffering fell on her; she could not strike him thus without herself being wounded—without a pang in her own heart. Yet what she had determined to do as she saw him standing aloof that night with the rack of wondering grief, of incredulous reproach upon his face, she carried out now, cost her in its loss—even to her fair fame—whatever it should.

She turned to him with a sudden impulsiveness most rare with her, and in her eyes something of the defiance with which she had fronted Conrad Phaulcon mingled with an infinitely softer and more mournful thing.

"Listen! As you have seen me to-night, I am. That higher, holier light you view me through is in your own eyes, not in me. Ask those whom you saw with me; they will tell you I am without mercy—believe them. They will tell you I have ruined many lives, blessed none—believe them. They will tell you you had better have died in the Carpathian woods than have fallen beneath my influence—believe them. Take the worst that you can learn, and credit it to its uttermost. Tell yourself till you score its truth into your heart, that I have never been, that I shall never be, such as you imagine me. Your love can be nothing to me; but I would save