Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/210

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The snake but vanquished dost; and she will draw Another host from heaven to break heaven's law.

But he had withheld what was not less true, that it was because she had this sin of merciless destruction in her, this serpent skill of tempting, this guilty power over the fates and souls of men, that he had first been fascinated to her dominion, and first seen in her a mistress by whom and with whom he could reach all to which his restless and insatiable ambition aspired, and aspired in vain.

"Will he believe?" he wondered, as his eyes vacantly rested on the sands where the footprints of his rival had sunk. "Not he. What man would belíeve the witnessing voices of the whole world if she once whispered them false? And she pays him, too, with love-words, with the sweetness of her lips, with the touch of hair on his cheek;—ah, God!"

He could have thrown himself on the sands and bidden the sea surge up and cover him, when he thought of that caress which already had been the reward of the man who had succoured her. And he—he who betrayed her, what had he won by the treachery?

"Revenge at least," he thought; and as he thought so his head sank, his limbs grew rigid, his