Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/236

Rh the chillness of St. Just, the evil would líe with the tyranny which had made the warmth of his rosy mouth die out on the ice of his mother's bosom.

Idalia moved forward to within the circle of the watch-fire, lighted as the sole means they had to illumine the gloom; there was a deadly calmness in the mechanical actions that sent a thrill through the child Berto as he watched her where she sank down on the log, covered with a shaggy ox-hide, that he had vacated. She seemed unconscious of his presence; and he knew that more than mere physical peril, which he had many a time seen her meet so carelessly, was upon her now.

Phaulcon touched him. " I will look to the fire, Bert ; go and sleep. You need it."

"Her Excellency permits?" asked the boy.

He spoke hesitatingly, reverentially. Beside the flower-hung waters of Verona he had known this woman, now a homeless fugitive, ride through the heat of conflict and dismount, and gather the spent balls under a raking enfilado, and heap them in her skirts, and mount him on her charger to bear them to the revolutionary soldiers, whilst she stayed on at her dangerous gleaning.

She looked at him pityingly, but there was that in