Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/224

Rh away from all eyes—that her smile might be seen of none—that what could not be his should be no other's—that the empire of her sorcery should end for ever in a life of ignominy, of suffering, and of slavery. But now he shuddered where he sat immovable, with the yellow light streaming down through the vine; he had given her over to one who never spared, to one who would look on her loveliness at once with the admiration of a voluptuary and the sway of a tyrant; to one who could offer her release from lifelong misery as the purchase coin of her love, or could take it, if denied, with the mailed grasp of an irresistible and irresponsible dominion.

It fascinated him with its very horror, it enchained him with its very torture, this thought which he had flung at the name of Idalia, to insult her and to taunt his companion, and which grew into a phantom that he could not exorcise, a vision that he could not drive away. Every second was horrible to him; he saw the sovereign grace, the proud glance of the woman he had betrayed; he saw the full lustrous eyes of the arrogant priest as they would be bent upon her; and he writhed as under some bodily agony—he had dealt himself a sharper torment than any he had condemned