Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/333

322 hour," he said, aa he closed the door afresh, and the bolts rolled back into their places.

The oil-fed wick shed but a narrow circle of light beneath it; it did nothing to illumine the impenetrable darkness that lay beyond in the central and distant parts of the room; there was no more sound here than in her own prison-place, the same flitting of grey downy wings, the same gliding mummur of hidden night-awakened insect life. She thought that again the Italian had betrayed her; that she was still in solitude.

But though her eyes could not pierce that dense all of unlightened shadow that fronted her, such light as came from the lamp—for here the moon did not shine—was cast full about her, and on the dusky scarlet cloud of her draperies. And on the silence a cry rang that startled all the nightbirds in their restless flight, circling beneath the rafters. Unseen himself, he saw her, and deemed it a vision of the bitter dreams that swam, as shadows seem to swim on waters, through his aching brain.

He rose slowly from the straw in which he lay, reeling to and fro in his weakness, and came out from the gloom, and faced her—silent.

She looked at him a moment, then fell at his feet