Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/383

 thoughts; all that had gone before: and he knew that she was not a woman who would bear pity, and that she was best left thus in solitude.

Like a caged animal she paced to and fro the long length of the stone terrace.

She was all alone.

The flower-like radiance of the declining day shone everywhere around, the birds sang, the dreamy bells rang in the Ave Maria from hill to hill, all was so still, so peaceful, so beautiful; yet with the setting of the sun, his life might go out in darkness.

In her great misery, her soul was purified. The fire that consumed her burned away the dross of the world, the alloy of selfishness and habit and vain passions. "Oh, God! give me his life, and I will give him mine!" she cried in her heart all through those terrible hours; and yet recoiled in terror from the uselessness and daring of her prayer. What had she ever done that she could merit its fulfilment?

He might have been hers, all hers; and she had loved the base things of a worldly greatness better than himself. And now he lay