Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/337

326 sake of the imperishable fidelity he had sworn to her; but it would have been only when the last thing was done and the last sacrifice rendered, to have put her from him for evermore, and never to have looked upon her face again.

She lay at his feet, and heard him thus abjure her power; thus entreat for force to be blind and dead to the allurement of what he deemed the voluptuous visions of his cheated passion; and she honoured him as never she had honoured any living man; honoured the slave, who, because his slavery was shame, broke from it, and became her king by virtue of the very majesty of that rebellion. Snakes had crawled and beasts had crouched in human likeness many a time before her; this man alone stood before her undebased, having rent the withies of base desire, having cleaved to the liberty of an unstained honour.

And her heart went out to him in supplication, remembering alone the wretchedness that through her had fallen on him.

"My God, yes! I have brought you only evil. But hear me once before we part for ever. Hear me but once,—you perish by me, but I have no guilt to you.

He breathed loud and hard; his eyes stared on