Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/104

Rh the dark by hands that were sworn to shield me. I cared littíe what I did, nothing for what was said of me, after that. I am not justifying myself; I merely show you what fires they were which burned me heartless. I have been associated with every movement of the advanced parties of Europe through the years that have gone by since I first became the Countess Yassalis; I have been the inspirer of more efforts, the guide of more intrigues; than I could tell you in a score of hours, even were I free to tell you them; I have held in my time, indirectly, more power than many a minister whose name is among the rulers; the world does not know how it is governed, and it does not dream how kings have dreaded and statesmen sought to bribe me. One thing alone I remained true to, heart and soul—my cause. For the freedom of the peoples, for the breaking of their chains, I have laboured with all such strength and brain and force as nature gave me. In that I have been true, and without taint of selfish desires. God knows that to raise my own land among the nations, and to gain Italy for the Italians, and to do—were it ever so little—to crush the tyrannies of creeds, to bring nearer the daylight of fearless and unfettered truth, I would let Giulio Villaflor and his creatures kill me as they