Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/29

18 reeling: he could not tell what to believe, what to trust, what to think.

The single-hearted nature of the man had too honest a mould, too masculine a cast, to follow or to divine the complex intricacies of a woman's life, of a woman's impulses and motives. He felt blinded, powerless, heart-sick, dizzy, now crushed with reckless despair at the chill memory of her words, now touched with sweet wild hope, because he thought her free to be won if daring, fidelity, and devotion could avail to win her.

To doubt her, never—even now, even with all that he had seen and heard—occurred to him. He believed that she might only pity him with proud cold pity; he believed that it was faintly, remotely possible that by force of his own mighty love some tenderness might be at last wakened for him in her heart. But between these he saw no path, He never thought that she might be—but fooling, and destroying him.

He had comparatively seen little of women; nothing of such a woman as Idalia. His bold and sanguine nature quickly grasped at hope; even in all the humility of his love it was not in him to surrender.

Till morning broke beyond the giant mass of St.