Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/276

Rh out though it was. Throughout their lives he had Betrayed, and oppressed, and goaded, and dishonoured her; throughout them she had done him good for evil, and been true to him against his own untruth. This strength and this fealty pierced him harder, because of their utter unlikeness to the cowardice and the greed of his own nature. With hands that trembled, and tears that stood thick in his eyes, he touched her, and sought to revive her; his temper was the temper of a child, and he had a child's fleet facile emotions, a child's wanton cruelty and worthless repentance. Like a child, he could wring his bird's throat without mercy, and weep useless tears when the victim lay cold and huddled in death.

After a while sense returned to her; her lips parted with slow struggling breaths, her veins grew warm, her eyelids quivered and opened heavily to the glare of the resinous flames. She knew him where he bent above her, and lifted herself with a sudden breathless shuddering force. "Go, go, go! Never dare to come again in my sight!"

He lingered, scared and awed by the words and the gesture that were like an imprecation upon him,