Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/248

Rh Those memoríes thronged on her as they had thronged on her foe in the loneliness of the sea-vault, whilst that vow of implicit obedience to his will, of unvarying association with his schemes, of eternal silence on his tie to her, and of eternal devotíon to the interests of his order, which had many a time aroused in her such passionate and contemptuous rebellion even whilst she repaid his betrayal by fidelity, now seemed to stand out before her in the fantastic lines of the hot embers.

That oath had coiled about her many a time, had stifled, and bruised, and worn, and stung her beneath all the pleasures of her abundant life, had made her the compelled accomplice of harm she strove to avert, had poisoned those enterprises and those perils which were to her the sweetest savour of her years, had bound her down into an abhorred fealty to a dastard, and had driven her to loathe the sight of those fair hills and stately palaces whose herítage had rendered her the envy of her tyrant. Now it wound round another life than hers. She would have accepted as retributive justice all that could have befallen herself, but here she could not suffer alone.

"How can I save him? How can I save him?" she thought unceasingly; save him, not alone from