Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/254

Rh enough to spare this man some portion of his pang—might make her in his sight loathsome enough to be thrust out from every memory, cursed yet unregretted. That smile stung him as scorpions sting; he crushed her in his arms, ere she could escape him, in the ferocity of an intense torture.

"You smile at my misery? Are you, then, the thing that they say—the beautiful, pitiless, glorious, infamous temptress, seducing men to your wíll that they may perish in your work, binding them by their passions that they may die at your bidding? Ah! my love, my love! only look in my eyes as an hour ago; and I will curse myself that I ever asked you such shame; only let your líps touch mine with their sweetness, and the whole world shall call you traitress, but I shall know you truth?" The impetuous, wild words poured out unchecked, incoherent; he scarcely knew what he uttered, he only knew that the kiss of this woman would outweigh with him the witness of all mankind; they burned deep down into her heart, they brought the subtlety of temptation to her, insidious, sweet, and rank as honey-hidden poison. Her honour broken with one, her past withheld from the other; a bond ruptured, a silence kept; this only done, and the