Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/46

Rh mistress's feet and learning by his fall her love, murmured with his latest words,

Stretched there motionless, strengthless, seeing only the gaze of her eyes in the dimness, and feeling the depth of the solitude in which their lives were alone, as in the awful stillness of a desert, he knew not yet whether this was truth, or whether dying visions mocked him—whether this spiritual stillness round him, this madness of incredulous hope, this breath of whispered words that fanned his hair, this caress that burned one moment on his lips, were not the mere phantoms of vain desires dreaming of the joys denied to them for ever. For a while she let him lie thus, with his head sunk back against her heart, and his eyes alone speaking as they gazed up with their dog-like fidelity: she had no thought now that this was death which had come to him; she knew that he would live as surely as though with that answer to his prayer she had breathed back the certainty of existence upon his lips; and she knelt there silent and immovable, letting the moments drift on,