Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/332

Rh osteria for them. Write, and you shall see this stricken lion of yours; sure you have wounded him someway worse than ever we did."

She laid the paper on the stone window-sill, and wrote an order for the payment, in París, of ten thousand francs in her name to his. He read it with the hesitation of a bad scholar by the feeble oil light; then a laugh spread itself over all his features.

"So! I have a brother, a singer, in Paris who will serve for this work. It were as much as my life, Miladi, were worth for your name and mine to be seen together. Come! you shall go to your comrade; but, of a surety, rich lips like yours might add one another payment?" The indignant blood flushed her face; but she restrained the haughty impulse that moved her.

"Brave men do not insult captives who cannot resent," she said, bríefly. "I have fulfilled my bond. Fulfil yours."

He hung his head ashamed, and motioned her to pass out before him. There was a short broad stone passage, with a door at the further end—the great barn-boor of another stone chamber. He drew the bars aside, and pushed it open, setting his lamp down within the entrance. "You shall be alone an