Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/78

Rh He looked at her with a long wistful gaze, earnest as an unspoken prayer, and once more the darker and the more callous tyranny that had for one instant returned on her was softened and banished and dríven back by the pure strength of an undivided loyalty, by the undivided trust of a brave man'a heart.

"You know it," he answered her. "Why play with me in speech when you hold my life in your power?"

The patience and gentleness of the rebuke touched her as had never done those florid vows, those ornate protestations, such as she had heard so often until she was as wearied by them as eyes that dwell long on the dazzling hues of jewels ache with their glitter and their profusion. Others had loved her as well as he, even with this depth, thís might, this absolute submission of all existence to her, yet in him these had a dignity and a simplicity that claimed a reverence no other had done—these in him made her worthloss of them in her own sight. "Ah, forgive me!" she said, with that passionato contrition which in a woman thus proud, and of old thus unyielding as she was, had at once so much of poignancy, so much of self-reproach, "I wish only it were otherwise! I wish only that your fate were