Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/348

Rh was natural to her as its warmth to the sun. "In years I could not! Tell the torture of that companionship I have endured so long? Ah! you must paint it to yourself; no words of mine could give it. Look! I am brave, I was born linked with a coward; I am proud, I have been bound to a man who never knew what it was to wince under the lash of dishonour; I am ambitious, and I have been leashed with an adventurer whom the whole continent brands as a knave; I have loved truth and the people's rights—it is all that has redeemed me—and I have been fastened hand and foot to the baseness of intrigue, the venality of mock patriotism, the criminal craft of secret societies. Look! That man could hear what you called me and deemed me a few hours ago; and he could hold his peace, and laugh, and never breathe one word, or strike one blow, to defend my honour, to redeem my name. That will tell you what his life has been." A bitter curse moved his lips as he heard.

"Why did you stay me when my hand was on his throat?" "Could his guilt annul his tie to me? By that one bond he has claimed his immunity, and enforced my forbearance, through all the evil of his years."

"Yet,—why not have told me?"