Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/236

Rh was the deadliest sin in his eyes; he would have stricken it out with the iron heel of Torquemada or Ximenes.

"Some crave death, and are forbidden it; they must live to do our bidding."

The words were uttered low, and the menace, though vague, was pregnant. For the moment there was intense silence, but her eyes never shrank, only in them deeper and deeper gathered the mute and fiery scorn.

"You threaten me," she said, with cool, contemptuous carelessness, reckless how she provoked, so that she stabbed him. "It is scarcely worth while to so stain your manhood and your calling, Monsignore. I am in your power. There is little dignity in menace to a prisoner."

The kingly potentate, the silken churchman, the absolute tyrant, the tortuous courtier, shook in all his limbs with rage. She took his weapons from him, she rent his panoply, she silenced his eloquence, she pierced his nets, and an insidious passion crept in on him. She looked so beautiful there, in the fading russet light, with her Greek grace and her ironic pride, and her fettered, untamed, deathless royalty!

"She is a Semiramis! She is a sorceress!" he