Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/326

Rh past become of use in her extremity. But the task was beyond her strength. She was fasting—she was devoured with thirst; she was conquered by physical fatigue; she could see, hear, remember, nothing but the face of the man who had been willing to perish for her sake,—the gallant beauty bound to the stone-shaft, mutilated, bruised, agonised,—the voice which yet gave her no reproach more bitter than that one rebuke, "Why have you so much mercy on my body?" She loved him with the voluptuous warmth of southern passion; but she loved him also with that power of self-negation which would have made her accept any doom for herself, could she thereby have released him to freedom and to peace. Her pride of nature, her imperial ambitions, her habit of dominion, and her desire of homage, had given her long a superb egotism, even whilst she had been ever willing to lose all she owned for the furtherance of lofty aims. But now all heed of herself was killed in her; on her own fate she never cast a thought of pity. She had played a great game, won many casts in it, and lost the last. That was but the see-saw of life. But he—for his loyalty he perished; for his nobility he suffered as felons suffer; by the very greatness of his faith he was betrayed; by the very purity of his sacrifice he was lost for ever!