Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/355

344 this—but what avail? You perish through me, for me, by me! What use that you should hold me faithful to you? I am none the less your murderess because I would give my life for yours, my love, my love, my love!"

Her voice, that had been sustained and eloquent with the vital strength of remembered wrongs, failed her over the last words. The memory of the martyrdom which he had borne for her; the memory of the destruction of all his future, which through her befell him; the memory of the only existence that could ever now be his dragged out beneath the galley-chains, and companioned by the worst of criminals, alone remained with her. Guilty or guiltless, faithless or faithful, having cleaved to him or having forsaken him,—what mattered it? Wherein could it serve him? He was lost through her.

But this thought never came to him. His eyes looked down on her through the heavy shadow with a light in them that had the sweetness of release, the glory of victory, through all the infinite pain and hopelessness of their fated love.

"What avail?" he answered her. "Do you know me yet so little? Do you not know that I could lie down and die content, since I have heard that you are sinless?"