Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/76

Rh could approach him which had any shadow on it; that nothing men or fortune could deal unto him could ever move him to an instant's pang. He did not dream that there are gífts, breathlessly, burningly coveted, which are more dísastrous reached than lost. like Faustus, he would have said to the íuture and its fate, "take

And his noble reckless, senseless belief in her had alike the sublimity and the blindness which lie at the core of every chivalrous idealism; blent, too, wíth something grander and something loftier still—a love that cleaved to her through all and in the teeth of all—a love that could fínd her human and darkened by human stains, yet never lose its fídelity, but reach high, even high as pardon, if need there were of any pardon's tenderness.

The day was waking; the sun had risen; even here, through the darkness of the oak boughs, the radiance was coming. He started to his feet, made as strong to save her now, as though the force of a score of lives was poured into his own; of pain, of weakness, of the aching fever that thrilled through his bruised limbs, he knew nothing. He seemed to