Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/216

Rh speak nothing of your guilt to me—nothing of your críme against him. I will deal with you as though none of all that measureless iniquity were on you. Conscience you have not; shame you do not know. I appeal to neitlier. I will treat with your avarice alone. You love self-indulgence, luxury, vice, mirth, indolence, splendour; you have coveted my heritage from the Vassalis, you have been thirsty for my riches; you have wanted all that Eastern pomp and princely fief, you have hungered for Count Julian's possessions, you have hated me for many things, yet for none so much as for the inheritance of that great wealth; that you used it, and wasted it, and were welcomed to it long as though it were your own, mattered nothing. It was mine, and not yours; you never forgave the difference. Well, bear me now. All that shall be yours—all—all—to the last stone of the jewels, to the lowest chamber of the palace, to the poorest fíg-tree on the bills, to the farthest landmark on the plains. You shall have all, and reign there as you will."

An intense eagerness thrilled through her voice, the wavering light upon her face grew hotter and darker, the chained bitterness and fierceness in her gave but the subtler inflection to the eloquence and the command that ran as of old through all her