Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/197

186 of your own life, which is probably the cost you will pay sooner or later for your loyal efforts to save her."

Erceldoune breathed fast and heavily; a sickening sense of mystery, of treachery, of evil, of half-truths told him only that by them he might be led deeper into error, was upon him.

"Had I twenty lives, she commands them," he said briefly. "Say out your meaning—honestly, if you can."

"Very simply, then;—the woman to whom you would give a score of lives, if you had them, has from first to last sheltered your assassin from you, and has counterfeited tenderness for you that she might gain an influence strong enough to enable her to turn aside your vengeance from the only man Idalia Vassalis ever loved." The words were cold, clear, incisive, calm with the tranquillity of unwarped truth. Under them he staggered süghtly, like one who reels under a deep knife-thrust; his hands fell once more on his torturer's shoulders, swaying him dizzily to and fro.

"Own that you lie, or by"

The closing path rattled hard in his throat; in the moment he could have choked her traducer dead with no more thought, no more remorse, than men