Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/346

Rh and a coward's secrecy. Yes! I!—I!—I!—who believed no empress never had wider reign, who have treated men as dogs beneath my feet, who have told you the legends that gave me heroes' and sovereigns' blood in my veins; I have greater shame upon me than the poorest serf that ever crawled to take bread at my gates. I am the associate and the accomplice of an assassin. I am the daughter of Conrad Phaulcon."

He heard; and the words carried their way to his mind, that had been delirious with the weight, and now was giddy with the release, of pain. He heard; and the violence of the hatred he had borne this man shook him afresh, as tempests shake strong trees. He breathed slowly and heavily. With the rich liberty of his arisen joy came a deadly and heartsick oppression; with the sweet daylight of his renewed faith came the poison-mists of a dead crime.

"My God!—how you must have suffered!"

The suffering that such a tie as this had cost her was his first thought, before all other.

"You think of me, and for me still—still!"

"When I shall have ceased to think of you, I shall have ceased to live."

Burning tears fell from her eyes upon his hands. She would not let him raise her nearer him, but