Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/60

Rh vein of reckless, careless, satirical disdain, which had grown to be as her second nature in many things, and had so long been used as her surest veil to every deeper unacknowledged feeling.

The wistful uncertain pain which that tone had ever brought into his look was in it now, as he stooped towards her. He felt that he had no comprehension of her, but he was content—with that magnificent folly which is so noble in its rash unwisdom—that he loved her, and believed in her.

"I know nothing of your life—true. But make it one with mine, and I shall hold it as the divinest gift on earth; and if any dare calumniate it, they will find their reckoning with me. Oh, my love, my mistress, my idol! only give me the title to defend your honour against the whole world!" The tears stood once more in her eyes as she heard the passionate prayer, to which the tremor in his voice gave a yet deeper pathos—a yet more imploring eagemess. She grew paler still as she heard; a sigh from her heart's depths ran through her. The more faith he lavished on her, the more sublimely mad the blindness of his chivalry, the more heavily self-rebuke smote her, the farther the iron entered into her soul, and the farther she stood in her own sight from any fitness with