Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/27

16 "These words are painful to us both;—no more of them, sir. Farewell."

The word struck him as a shot strikes one of his Border deer; in the impulse of his agony he caught her trailing dress, and held it as a sentenced captive might hold the purple hem of his sovereign's robes.

"Stay! A moment ago you said you cared whether I lived or died;—as I live now I will die to-night—in that sea at your feet—if you tell me to leave you for ever."

A shudder ran through her; looking down on him she saw that fatigue, long fasting, the misery of the past hours, and the force of the feeling he bore her, had unloosed his passions and unstrung his nerves till his brain was giddy; and—his calm failing him—she saw that in every likelihood, as surely as the stars shone above them, he would keep his word and fling away his whole existence for her.

Commonly she was too careless of men's lives, as of their peace; but here she could not be so. She had saved him, she could not so soon again destroy him.

"Hush!" she said more softly. "The noblest woman would never be worth that! It would be better that we should part. When I tell you that it can bring you no happiness"