Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/51

40 with a dominion infinitely more commanding than his could ever have been, even had the fortunes of his race never fallen as they had done, or the pursuits of a statesman's glories ever been possible to the untamed Border blood.

When in the gloom of the monastery's corridors, with a hundred human tigers thirsty for slaughter swarming from their dens, she had been guarded by his arms and shielded on his breast, his heart had wakened her own with its quick beating; when in the darkness of the night she had made him pledge his word to serve her by a death-shot if to give her freedom from dishonour otherwise were forbidden him, she had felt to this man, whose eyes answered hers in comprehension of that loathing of captivity, that disdain of the terrors of the grave, what was nearer akin to reverénce than the imperial temper of Idalia had ever yielded to any.

"He loves me! Yes, as no man, I think, loved me yet!" she thought. "But he loves me because he believes in me. How long should I reign with him if he knew?—if he knew?" That was the iron weight on her, which made her whole frame sink with that fettered worn-out fatigue and desolation against the ivy-covered stones in the motionless musing that succeeded to the breathless,