Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/341

330 "Then—you had sin to another. I have not the strength I thought; I cannot pardon to the uttermost. I would not forsake you; I would not harm you. Vengeance! What would that give back to me? But the woman I loved is dead, I say; do not bring me in mockery of her,—a courtezan."

The words were incoherent and faint; but they had an exceeding pathos; the longing, aching melancholy of a life henceforth without one hope. Her very heart seemed to break as she heard them, as they strove after justice and tenderness to her, even amidst the havoc of his shattered faith, his unutterable desolation.

"Listen;" she answered him, passionately. "I bring you a woman who sinned, if ambition were sin; if too little mercy were sin; if imperious pride and cruel victory were sin; if evil fellowship and enforced sufferance of alien crime were sin; but of all other I am innocent."

His hands fell heavily on her shoulders, in the dim light that flickered on the paleness of her face, his own was wholly in darkness; but through the gloom his eyes burned down upon hers with the glow of wildly-wakening hope straining through the belief—by her own lips—of her guilt.