Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/26

 man. All he can bring you, all he has brought to you, are a cruel burden, a shameful secrecy. Why should you give him this fidelity? He can give you nothing but disgrace'

He paused, suddenly conscious of the futility of any such reasoning, of the utter uselessness of attempting to make her remember her own safety or her own welfare.

'I thought you were proud,' he added abruptly; 'I used to call you "icy flame," as Shelley called the moon. Are you not too proud to live thus—you?'

She had listened peaceably, with no sign of either emotion or anger except in the drawing closer together of her straight dark eyebrows, that looked as though a brush of ink had finely drawn them.

Even now she did not fully gather all his meaning, which his heart failed him to cast at her in coarse words.

'I do not think of myself, and you need not,' she said simply. 'While he needs me, never will I leave him. If ever he do not need me, then will I never trouble him. I wish to go. Will you let me go now?'