Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/222

Rh "Fine phrases! And yet you will deceive him?"

"I!"

"Yes, you, Miladi. You will not betray me to him—you cannot. So—telling him nothing—you will leave him ignorant. And one fine day, were I to let you run your passion's course, he would learn the truth, and find his sovereign, his idol, his mistress, his wife, my"

"Wait! You have said enough!"

"No. I say more. Forsake him, and he is safe from me. Give yourself to him, and I will add him his marriage-gift—death. Just such a death as he would have dealt me on the Bosphorus shore. I can see the gleam of his steel, and the thirst of his eyes, now!"

"If he had killed you, what would he have done more than justice?"

"At least he would have rendered you inestimable service, Miladi!"

She stopped him with an irrepressible gesture.

"Hush, hush! Such words between us!"

"Well! We are enemies; bitter ones enough."

"Yes; enemies as the wronged and the wrong-doer ever are. But your life is sacred to me; how can you curse mine?"