Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/339

328 and laid her hands upon his breast, and looked full upward to his eyes: and her voice was low, and had a strange sweetness in it.

"When to-night is over we shall never meet again. The truth may be told now. I have never betrayed you."

A marvellous change passed over his face; the suffering and the darkness, and the haggard desolation on it, were suddenly crossed as with a golden flash of light. He answered her nothing; but his gaze strained down into hers as though it read her soul.

Her hands still leant upon his breast, her eyes still were lifted up to his, her voice had still that sweetness which was so calm as with the calmness of those from whom all hope has passed, and yet had a yearning piteous passion in it that no words could give.

"We may speak now as the dying do—you and I—we die to-night. To-morrow the living world will have no place for us save a prison and a grave. You perish through me ; I have killed you! Your murderess— yes; but never your traitress."

He trembled through all his limbs under her touch and her words; the breath of her lips seemed to toss his life to and fro as the winds play with