Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/212

Rh night follows day. You tempt me to such shame—you!"

Victor raised his hand with a slight warning gesture; the gesture that controlled his companion's tumultuous passions like a spell.

"Why not?—to try you? Frankly, I scarce gave you credit for such sublimated idealogy and self-devotion. Do you mean to say that you would rather swing or be shot by the Bourbons to-morrow than get a court place and an Italian title?" He spoke with a contemptuous, incredulous insolence; he would as soon have expected Vesuvius to vomit gold and diamonds as to find anything like loyalty and probity in the man he dealt with—a man who checked at no crime, and knew no contrition.

The Greek flashed restlessly and painfully under the brown dye of his skin.

"Sneer as you will," he said, sullenly, "I have so much conscience in me, whether you believe it or not. I am vile enough, I dare say, but I am not so vile as that. There are few sins I have not plunged into, there is not one that I fear; but a renegade I never was yet, and never will be. By Heavens! if I felt myself turning traitor, if I thought that my strength would fail me to keep true, I