Moths by Ouida — page 116: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

is ? N ay 119 MOTHS. was a moth of sapphire and pearls, and beneath the moth was a flame of rubies.. They were so hung that the moth now touched the star, now sank to the flame. It needed no words with it for Vere to know whence it came. -But she kept silence: rh: ‘‘A strange jewel,” said Prince Zouroff, and his face grew dark: he thought some meaning or some memory came with it. It was the only gift amidst them all that felt the kisses and tears of Vere. | ‘‘T must sink to the flame!” she thought, ‘‘and he will never ‘tznow that the fault is not mine; he will never know that I have not forgotten the star!” But she only weptin secret. All her life henceforth was to be one of silence and repression. They are the sepolte vive in which society immures its martyrs. Some grow #0 like their prison-walls and to prefer them to light and freedom: others loath them in anguish fill death come. The gift of that strange medallion annoyed Zouroff, because it rplexed him. He never spoke to Vere concerning it, for he elieved that no woman ever told the truth; but he tried to dis- cover the donor by means of his many servants and agents. He failed, not because Correze had taken any especial means to In- sure secresy, but from simple accident. Correze had bought the stones himself of a Persian merchant many years before, had drawn the design himself, and had given - it to a young worker in gems of Galicia whom he had once be- friended at the fair of Novgorod; and the work was only com- plete in all its beauty and sent to him when the Galician died of that terrible form of typhus which is like a plague in Russia. Therefore Zouroff's inquiries in Paris were all futile, and he gradually ceased to think about the jewel. Another thing came to her at that time that hurt her, as the knife hurt Iphigenia. It was when the crabbed, clear hand- writing she knew so well brought her from Bulmer Chase a bit- ter letter. : - You are your mother’s child, I see,” wrote the harsh old woman, who had yet loved her so tenderly. - ‘‘ You are foolish, and fickle, and vain, and won over to the world, like her. You have nothing of my dead boy in you, or you would not sell your- self-to the first rich man that asks. Do not write to me; do not expect to hear from me; you are for me asif you had never lived, and if, in your miserable marriage, you ever come to lose name and fame—as you may do, for loveless marriages are an affront to heaven, and mosily end in further sin—remember that you ask nothing at my hands. At your cry I was ready to open my hand toyou and my heart, but I will never do so now, let you want it as you may. I pity you, and I despise you; for when you give yourself to a man whom you cannot honor or _ love, you are no better than the shameless women that a few weeks ago I would no more have named to you than I would have struck you a buffet on your cheek.” Vere read the letter with the hot brazen glow of the Paris sun striking through the rose silk of the blinds upon her, and each ~*~) (e(@) comicbooks : . 6 =f y : - i” : . . - . - =f : : i’ 4 - o é pee 4 | Fr Ay ti , a JA? - , eo ? x i wh Pi ti ag a . 3 — : i) as 2 “59> & ‘