Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/270

Rh "Yes. She is dead," she answered him, with a strange dreamy repetition. "Where has she ever lived save in your visions! She is dead—go. Do not wait by her grave."

There was a terrible meaning in the hushed, hopeless words; across their calmness a single cry broke—a cry that had in it all the despair of a ruined life, of a breaking heart.

Then silence fell between them. She had no courage to look upon his face; she dared not read all that she knew was written there.

The drooping flames reached a dry bough of pine, and flared afresh with it, and rose up in a writhing column of light. As the flames darted into lustre they shed their hue on the fair head of the Greek stretched out from the deep gloom of the farther vault. He drew back swiftly, as the telltale glare searched for him, and fell upon his face.

Yet before he could reach the shelter of the inner den, the one he had wronged saw him, and, with the leap of a staghound, hurled himself upon him, and dragged him from the depths of the vault forward into the full light of the flames. The slight limbs of the Athenian had no force against the vengeance of