Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/223

212 "Mine sacred to you? Is it so, Idalia? Then—being so, you will not betray me to your lover?" She turned on him a look that had a wearíness, a scorn, an agony, a pity unutterable.

"No! I must bear the burthen of your guilt."

"But you will betray him by leaving him in ignorance of whom beloves—of wbom be weds?"

"Though be knew, he would find mercy and greatness enough to pardon."

Sbe spoke not to bim, but to the memories that rose before her—memories that filled her heart with their bitterness and their sweetness—memories of the exhaustless faith and patience and forgiveness of the man she was bidden to abandon.

"Truly! Then what think you, Miladi? Is it a noble return to cheat him as you meditate? Is it a fine thing to recognise this limitless tenderness borne you, only to dupe it through its own sublime ínsanity? You have fooled sucb idolaters scores of times, I know, only—here I think you said you 'honoured' him? Which makes a difference; or might make it."

She knew well how wide the difference was—wide as between innocence and guilt.

She answered nothing; only in the brooding