Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/359

348 bedded high above in the granite-blocks, whilst with the coming of the day the birds of the night returned from their outward flight, and nestled in their dark haunts with their eyes hid beneath their wings. As the first light touched her brow,—and the dawn came not there till it was full-risen for the earth without,—she smiled in his eyes, and loosened from her bosom the slender steel blade, scarce broader than a needle's width, that had rested there so long.

"Take it. You have said—they shall not part us now." His hand closed on it while his smile answered hers. "I will find strength enough for that;—it shall give us eternal liberty, eternal union."

Once before he had pledged this promise to her. And as she had known then, so she knew now, that he would find strength to deliver her from dishonour and himself from captivity; strength to be true to her, even to this last thing of all.

Having reached the supreme ecstasy and the supreme anguish of life, death was to them, as to the races of the young world, the god of deep benignant eyes, whose touch was release, and whose kingdom was freedom, on whose face was light, and in whose hands was balm.