Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/265

254 pity, give no justice here. Only leave me—leave me» and never look upon my face again!"

"For what cause?"

"For the cause—that of my people—your murderer came."

He looked at her with a terrible incredulity, that was slowly hardening into the stern chill desolation of doubt that he had put from him so long with so leal an allegiance.

"Of your people! You called the Greek to me your deadliest foe?"

She was silent once more: the testimony of half the nations of the earth would have failed to weigh with him against her; but by her own blows the storm-proof fabric of his faith was swaying to its fall.

He laid his hands upon her shoulders, crushing under them the loose masses of her hair.

"First your foe, then your comrade—hated and sheltered—condemned by you, and screened by you. What is he to you, this man for whom you forswear yourself thus?"

She answered nothing; the red shadow of the fire gleamed upon her face, but it was not so dark or so hot as the flush of shame that scorched there. His hands held her like iron. The force of jealousy