Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/23

12 hills of the Border had taught him long before, cleared the space and alighted at her feet.

"Does it matter to you whether I live or die?"

The brief prayer bore eloquence deeper than lies in ornate words; all the man's heart was spent in it; Idalia stood motionless and silent, her eyes fixed on him where he stood beside her, dropped as from the air upon the wild cliffs in the dead of night, when she believed him far distant on those eastern shores to which the sea beneath them ebbed away through league on league of starlight.

"Does it matter to you whether I live or die?" he said afresh, while his voice quivered with a fiery piteous entreaty.

"Surely! It mattered to me when you were but a stranger."

A vivid joy thrilled through him, his eyes in the shadow burned down into hers with passionate appeal, with passionate reproach.

"Ay, but it was only a divine pity then, is it that only now? And with but pity in you for me, how could you deal me this last misery?"

What stirred her heart he could not tell.

"I bade you know no more of me," she said at last, while her eyes looked away from him down