Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/279

268 of life that the vine should give fruit, and the sleek herds milk, that their gay feet should ply in the tarantala's measure, and the sweet sun dance in their own bright eyes. She, left there in solitude, and bound by her word to keep the limits of her den, paced to and fro in the fire-lit darkness in that fierce, futile rebellion with which she had paced the dungeon of the church. Her eyes were burning, her throat was swollen with long thirst, her teeth were locked like a vice. All sense, thought, volition, seemed scorched up and withered in one intolerable misery, one unalterable shame, One thing alone seemed left to her—her vengeance.

She was of the nature which happiness makes sweet, rich, generous, as southern sunlight; which calamity renders fearless, strong, and nobly calm beneath all adverse fate; but which, beneath wrong and treachery, in an instant turns hard, dark, dangerous as the force of iron. She laughed aloud, in the loneliness.

"He played the traitor!—so! Well, he will learn how we deal with traitors. Fool, fool, fool!" Then, as that laugh died, the weakness of her bodily frame, the agony of her soul, beat down the false alien strength of bitter passions.