Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/40

Rh That gaze, though he lay senseless under it, seemed to have power upon him still, as when first under the Carpathian sea-pines it had been bent on him in the glow and fulness of the noon, never again to be forgotten. His eyes, blind and seeing nothing but the swaying motion of the leaves, still instinctively looked upward seeking hers. A heavy sigh heaved his breast,—a sigh in which words brokenly rose to his lips and died.

"Leave me. Save yourself."

His one thought was still of her; his one instinct still was for her. A quiver shook her from head to foot, as fear, and danger, and the pressure of the poisoned steel against her bosom, had had no strength to shake her grand and fearless courage. He was faithful to her thus—to the last—and she had given him no recompense save this—to die for her.

Her head bowed its haughty royalty downward and downward until her brow rested on his breast, and her hands drew his within them against the beating of her heart.

"Oh, truest, noblest!" she murmured, "I know it now. I love you, if love be any worth." Through the sickening delirium in which his mind