Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/257

246 face, her od superb wrath gleamed in her glance, her lofty height rose erect as a palm, her eyes met his ín all the fulness of their regard.

"He said?" she repeated.

"What your look has answered enough."

"No. What does he bring to my charge ?"

"Vileness that my lips will never repeat. Half-truths wrung into whole lies, as only such men can wring them. Chiefly—he bade me ask you two things."

"They were?"

"Who it is that sought my life in the mountains, and what tie a Greek—Conrad Phaulcon—bears to you?"

A change passed over her face, like that change which steals all the living warmth and hue from features that the greyness of death is approaching. He saw it, and his voice carne in broken rapid breaths, imperious and imploring.

"Are they one—this Greek and my murderer?"

She answered him nothing; he saw a hot flush rise upward over her face and bosom—the flush of a bitter degradation.

A moan like a wounded animal's broke from him; he could not bear to live and see shame touch her! He stood above her, while the flicker of the fíre