Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/122

Rh to him, staying his last words,—"that I might repay you in the future! If I were only sure that I should bring you no misery—if I could only know that no evil from me would fall on you—if I could only feel there were nothing untold between us, and that my life were worthier of your noble loyalty—I would lose every coin and rood of my inheritance, and come to you beggared of everything, yet rich—my God! how richer far than now!"

He had never seen her dignity so utterly abased, her pride so utterly swept away as now, when those broken and longing utterances escaped her; he saw that memories, which were in that moment an agony, shook down all the strength and all the calmness of her nature.

"Listen!" he said, softly and gravely, while he drew her hand in his. "Beggared or crowned, you would alike be my mistress, my empress, my idol. Slandered or honoured, you will alike be the one glory of my life, the one thought in my death. Why let us speak as if we should ever part? You must slay me, or forsake me, ere ever we shall be divided now."

Her eyes filled, as she heard him.

For some moments she answered him in no way; then, with one of the swift transitions of her changeful