Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/261

250 pain and pity; he had his own construction of the meaning of her words, and the patience and the belief in him were infinite.

"Though death came by you, do you think that I would leave you?" The great salt tears sprang into her aching eyes. She could have set the muzzle of the rifle to her forehead, and died there at his feet. She had a more merciless ordeal—to live and make herself loathsome in his sight.

"No; not for death," she answered him. "But—if dishonour came by me?" His frame shook with a sudden shudder, but still she could not turn away the enduring tenderness that would not take even her own witness against her.

"You use cruel words," he said, while he stood above her with the dignity of a judge, with a great nobility in the pity of his gaze. "Hear me a while. I have learnt more of your past to-day; I think that I can imagine what I do not know of it. I think that you have been involved in evil, but through errors that had root in virtues. I think that many have betrayed you and attainted you through the very bravery and generosity of your nature. I think that you have been bound with criminals because