Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/155

144 there in so profound a rest with a smile on his arched full lips.

"Poor boy!" she said, softly; "it is a cruelty to waken him. Dreams are the mercies of life. Yet there is no time to be lost. You may be saved still."

"What! your friend will serve us so well as that?" asked the Italian, wonderingly, "But it is not strange; the English are a bold people, they never refuse to resist oppression."

Over Idalia's face swept an unspoken contempt.

"The individual English, no!—but the nation would let any freedom be strangled like a hanged dog, rather than risk its trade or lose a farthing." "But it is a great risk for him. We have no right to expose him to it."

"No; we have no right," she answered, almost bitterly. "Not a shadow of right!—still he accepts it: he does not heed peril. What brave man does?"

"For you."

The words were softly added; the old Venetian looked at her with a mournful fixity, an unuttered interrogation. She turned slightly from his gaze; she knew what was in his thoughts; she knew that he reminded her of the many who had gone out to peril, and fallen beneath it, for her sake.