Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/167

156 dawn fell upon it. She was not a woman to wish things done undone, or to know the vacillations of regret; yet, in the moment, she almost wished the words unspoken which had been uttered by her in a sudden impulse and resolve to let him blind himself no longer.

"It is useless to try and save him now," she thought; "he will never forget." There was something which touched her infinitely in that guard he kept there; patient as the Pompeian soldier standing at his post, while the dark cloud of the ashes and the liquid torrent of lava-flame poured down, certain as he that no reward could come to him for his unrecompensed obedience, save perhaps one—death.

The Venetians left her garden. She saw them approach, and address him; she saw him start as the eider man handed him the ring, and, as he took it, give one upward glance at the eyrie of the villa where she leaned. Then he signed to him the sailor whom he had first spoken with on the night of his arrival at Capri.

There was an instant's terrible suspense as the Capriote stood curiously eyeing these two unknown sailors, whose presence on his shore he felt to be odd and unwelcome, since living was poor in the