Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/201

190 has had many lovers, but she duped them all. This man she never duped. A panther, with a velvet eye and a glorious beauty; a sun-god, with the soul of a fox and the heart of a carrion-crow—nothing more. But who shall measure the passionate fancies of a woman?—and such a woman? Well, she loved him; and he was your assassin. No way so sure to shield him, as to bring you under her dominance! It may be, it is true, that whilst fooling you for his sake, you dethroned him, and she grew in earnest, and it is he who is now to be thrown ad leones. It may be; Miladi has had many such caprices! That you may know I say truth, and not falsehood, go and put but two questions to her. Ask her first, who the man is who left you for dead in the mountains. Ask her last, what the tie is that binds her to the companion of her life, Conrad Phaulcon." Erceldoune had listened, without a word, without a breath, his face with that tempestuous darkness lowered on it, and a great horror, a great misery gazing vacantly out from his dilated eyes. Yet the loyalty and the faith in him were stronger than all tests that wning them; he struggled to keep his hold upon them, and to keep them pure, unsoiled, unswerving, as men may strain to guard their honour unwarped, when all the dizzy world about them