Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/349

338 "Because I was bound to silence by my oath. Look! I told you how my early life was spent, but I could not tell you the influence Conrad Phaulcon had on it. My mother died whilst I was in infancy. She was the love of his youth, and she had passed away from him ere she had worn that love out. There are green places which never wither in the hearts that are searest: such was her memory to him. But her race he hated with a reckless hatred; he had looked to share their dominion when he wedded her; but there was feud between him and Julian. And Julian read him aright, and held him in distrust, and none of their wealth came to him, and he hated their greatness with a bitter envy. I have heard him curse my face because it was like the Byzantine line; yet, on the whole, he loved, and was gentle to me. And I—I thought him a god, a hero, a patriot. He was a communist, an agitator, an adventurer; but I knew none of those names. I thought mankind was divided into the oppressors and the oppressed, into the hatesa and the lovers of liberty, and I revered him as a Gracchus, a Drusus, an Aristogiton, stoned by the nation's ingratitude! Once he was proscribed, and I knew where he lay hid, though I was but a few summers old, and they took and starved me to make me speak.