Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/16

Rh common custom for women in the isles of the Syrens; she knew the name; the Contessa had bought some coral of her, for pity's sake, yesterday; the villa was down there in that little gorge just hanging over the sea, where the grey plumes of olive were thickest. If any had asked it, he could not have answered with what definite purpose he went, whether to see her, whether to break on her privacy at such an hour, whether only to look on the place where she dwelt, and watch till the day should dawn: fixed aim he had none; he was urged by an impulse as vague as it was unconquerable, unregulated either by reason or by motive. He was in that mood in which chance does its best, or its worst, for a man; when he offers no resistance to it, and may even be hurried into guilt ere he knows what he does.

The lights were shining amongst the shades of olive and arbutus woods as his horse stumbled down the narrow defile, catching in the trailing vine tendrils at every step.

The dwelling literally overhung the sea, nestled on a low ridge of rock, curved round so that the whole arc of the bay, sweeping from east to west, was commanded by its windows, that saw the sun rise over the height of St. Angelo, fall in its noon-day glory full on Naples, and Vesuvius, and Baiæ,