Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/170

Rh her ensign of St. George fluttered in the favouring breeze. With an easy gliding motion, like a swan's, she passed through the sun-lit waters, unnoticed, unpursued. Against her rails one figure leaned motionless; his eyes were turned towards the rock, hanging so far above, where the villa was suspended like a falcon's nest; turned there always whilst the yacht passed onward, out beyond Capri, beyond Ischia, beyond the range of Neapolitan guns and the pursuit of Neapolitan ships, outward to round the snow-peaks of the eyrie of the Buonaparte eaglets, and to steer on towards the southern coast of France, in safety.

As it receded, slowly, surely, till its sails looked no larger than the sea-gulls that flew past her, and the busy day of the young summer awoke all round the semicircle of the bay, then, only then, Idalia moved and left the ivy-sheltered casement. From the glittering stretch of the azure seas, as from the thoughts newly arisen in her, she turned, with a pang of pain, with a throe of regret, the bitterness of pride repelling weakness, the bitterness of pride warring with remorse.