Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/223

212 Where he sat, with his teeth clenched and the nerve of his lips twitching, the finished tactician cursed his fate as passionately as any Gilbert on his death-bed, any Mirabeau in his dungeon. A consuming passion was upon him; and under it his philosophies mocked and his worldly wisdom forsook him. It had made him a traitor; it made him now weak as any woman. While he had lightly laughed with a scoff to the Greek of her sorcery over the Italian Prelate, his heart had been sick with jealousy and dread. He had remembered too late what manner of man Giulio Villaflor was; what manner of ransom the voluptuous Churchman was likely to exact from such a captive as he possessed now. He had thought too late that, in yielding her up to her foe, he was delivering the woman he loved to one who would feel the spell of her beauty as utterly as he, and would be armed with the power to do with that beauty howsoever he would. So that he were revenged on her, he had never heeded how that vengeance might recoil. It smote him keenly now, as he mused on the amorous, ruthless, unscrupulous priest to whom he had surrendered her.

In the power of Giulio Villaflor!—he turned hot and cold as the memory passed over him. He had delivered her into bondage, that she might be shut