Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/243

232 profit by none; he had known her keep her word and redeem her bond at risk and cost that might well have extenuated her abandonment of both. He turned quickly from the watchfire, and went down into the shadow of the farther recesses, whence a steep cramped stairway, cut upwards through the rock, led, like the shaft of a mine, into the lowest chambers of the building high above on the crest of the cliff; the bell-tower of the fallen castle, bare and crumbling to ruin, deserted, except when, as now, some fugitive who knew its secrets sought its subterranean shelter. The stair was perpendicular and difficult of ascent; he thrust himself slowly up it and into the dull twilight, that by contrast looked clear as noon, of the basement square of the campanile. He had no fear that she would fail her promise, but he had fear—a certain superstitious fear—of that grave, colourless, magnificent face bent above the pine glow; he could not stay longer under the scourge of her unuttered scorn, under the mute reproach that her mere life was to him. He would not unchain her to freedom, but he feared her. He breathed more freely when he left the darkness of the cavern for the upper earth; he was fevered and fatigued, and timorous of the danger round them as any long-chased stag; and he cast himself down to rest a while