Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/85

74 and impassive serenity on him; by the tone, he said as though he had spoken it that no menace, no pang, no death, would make Idalia what he was now—a renegade.

"Altro! she is a woman?" said Monsignore, with the mockery of the Neapolitan laugh in the protrusion of his handsome under lip.

"We waste words, Monsignore," said Victor Vane, abruptly. "She is not like other women." "Contumacious! Then she must feel the arm of the Church." The words were spoken without any ruffle of that silken and unctuous tone in which Giulio Villaflor whispered softest tones in the ear of Austrian and Parisian beauty, but in the lustrous eyes gleamed a glance cold as ice, fierce as lust, dangerous as steel. "My son, tell us all that you know once more."

"All that I know!" There was a smile that flickered across his features one moment, though it passed too instantaneously for it to be even caught by Villaflor, "That would take hours. I can give you heads, and bring you proofs as you require them. I know that she arranged the escape of the two Ronaldeschi from the galleys. I know that she has effected the flight of Carradino from his prison; I know that through her twenty thousand muskets