Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/355

 had touched her, yet had left her without its courage.

In those long, lonely, studious days in Lent, studying her religious art with wandering thoughts, she grew to hate herself; yet, to resign her empire for another's sake never even distantly appeared to her as possible.

One day, in a little private chapel, where there were some fine dim works in tempera, only to be seen by earliest morning light, she was startled by seeing him near her; he was coming from the sacristy on business of the church; he looked at her quickly, and would have passed on with a silent salutation, but she approached him on an impulse which a moment later she regretted.

"Need you avoid me?" she said, hurriedly. "Surely—I go from here so soon—we might still be friends? People would talk less"

He looked down on her with a cold severity which chilled her, like the passing of an icy wind.

"Madame," he answered her, with a fleeting smile, "your northern lovers, perhaps, may have been content to accept such a position. I am, I confess, thankless. I thought you too proud to