"Ay, think upon the cause—
Forget it not. When you lie down to rest,
Let it be black among your dreams; and when
The morn returns, so let it stand between
The sun and you, as an ill-omened cloud
Upon a summer-day of festival."
—BYRON.
A month passed. Night and day the search had been carried on; enormous rewards were offered; detectives were sent in every direction; but all in vain. No trace of the lost child was to be found.
Lady Maude had awoke from that deadly swoon, only to fall into another, and another, until her friends grew seriously alarmed for her life. From this, she sunk into a sort of low stupor; and for weeks, she lay still and motionless, unconscious of everything passing around her. White, frail, and shadowy, she lay, a breathing corpse, dead to the world and all it contained. She scarcely realized her loss, she felt like one who has received a heavy blow, stunning her for a time, and rendering her unable to comprehend the full extent of her loss. She received what they gave her in a passive sort of way, heard without understanding what they said, and watched them moving about from under her heavy eyelids without recognizing them. She did not even know her husband, who, the very shadow of his former self, gave up everything to remain by her bedside, night and day. They began to be alarmed for her reason, at last; but her physician said there was no danger—she would arouse from this dull, death-like lethargy, at last: they must only let nature have her way.
Earl De Courcy never left his room now. Feeling as if in some sort he was the cause of this awful calamity, he remained, day and night, in his chamber, a miserable, heart-broken, wretched old man.
Late one evening, early in May, as he sat bowed and collapsed in his chair, a servant entered to announce a stranger below, who earnestly desired to see his lordship.
"Is it a woman?" asked the earl, turning ghastly.
"No, my lord, a man, I think, wrapped in a long cloak, and with a hat slouched down over his face. He said he had something of the utmost importance to reveal to your lordship."
"Show him up," said the earl eagerly: while his heart gave a sudden bound, as he thought it might be some one with news of Erminie.
The next moment the door was thrown open, and a tall, dark figure, muffled in a cloak reaching to the ground, and with a hat pulled far over the face, entered, and stood silently confronting the earl.
"Well? Do you bring news of my son's child? Speak quickly, for God's sake, if you do!" said the earl, half rising in his eagerness.
Two fierce, black eyes, like living coals, glared at him from under the hat; but the tall stranger spoke not a word.
A deadly fear, like an iron hand, clutched the heart of the earl. That tall, motionless form; those glaring eyes; that ominous silence, made his very blood curdle. White and trembling, he fell back in his seat, for all his undaunted strength was gone now.
"Leave the room," said the stranger, in a deep, stern voice, turning to the servant, who stood gazing from one to the other.
The man vanished—the door closed. And Earl De Courcy was alone with his mysterious visitor, who still stood erect, towering and silent, before him.
"Man or devil, speak! With what evil purpose have you sought me to-night?" said the earl, at last finding voice.
Silently the stranger lifted his hat, and cast it on the floor. A mass of thick, streaming, black hair, on which, one wild March night, the pitiless rain had beat, fell over her shoulders. The long cloak was dropped off, and, stern, dark and menacing, he saw the lofty, commanding form, the fierce, black eyes, and dark, lowering brow of the wronged gipsy queen, Ketura, his relentless, implacable foe.
The last hue of life faded from the white face of the earl at the terrible sight; a horror unspeakable thrilled through his very soul. Twice he essayed to speak; his lips moved, but no sound came forth.
Silent, still, she stood before him, as rigid as a figure in bronze, her arms folded over her breast, her lips tightly compressed, every feature in perfect repose. You might have thought her some dark statue, but that life—burning life—was concentrated in those wild, dark eyes, that never for a single instant removed their uncompromising glare from his face.
So they stood for nearly five minutes, and then words came, at last, to the trembling lips of the earl.
"Dark, dreadful woman! what new crime have you come to perpetrate this night?"
"No crime, lord earl. I come to answer the questions you asked as I entered."
"Of the child? You have stolen it?" he wildly demanded.
Her malignant eyes were on him still; her arms were still folded over her breast; no feature had moved; but now a strange, inexplicable smile flickered round her thin lips, as she quickly answered:
"I have!"
"And, woman!—demon in woman's form! what wrong had that helpless babe done you?" he cried out, in passionate grief.
No change came over the set, dark face, as from the lips, still wreathed with that dreadful, ominous smile, slowly dropped the words:
"'The sins of the father shall be visited upon the children's children, even to the third and fourth generation. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life, saith the Lord of Hosts!'"
"Devil incarnate! blaspheme not! Oh, Heaven of heavens! how had you the heart to murder that child?"
"You had the heart, lord earl, to murder mine."
"I believed him guilty. You know I did! And she was an innocent babe, as pure from all guile as an angel from heaven."
"So was he, my lord. He was as free from that crime as that babe; and yet for it you took his life."
It was awful to hear her speak in that low, even voice, so unnaturally deep and calm. No pitch of passion could be half so terrific as that unearthly quiet.
"Devil!—fiend! you shall die for this!" he cried, madly springing up. "What ho! without there! Secure this hag of perdition before—"
A low, strangled gurgle finished the sentence; for, with the bound of a pythoness, she had sprung forward and grasped him by the throat. She had the strength of a giant. He was a weak, broken-down old man, as powerless in her strong, horny fingers as an infant.
He grew black in the face, his eyeballs projected, and he struggled, blindly and helplessly, to extricate himself. She laughed a low, jeering laugh at his ineffectual efforts, and said, insultingly, as she released him:
"Softly, softly, lord earl! such violent straining of your lungs is not good for your constitution. You are quite helpless in my hands, you perceive; and if you attempt to raise your voice in that unpleasant manner again, I shall be forced to give you a still more loving clutch next time. Your best policy is, to keep as quiet as possible just now."
He ground his teeth in impotent fury, as he gasped for breath.
"Besides, you take things for granted too easily, my lord. What proof have you that I am a murderess? You are, and in the sight of God; but that is not saying I am!"
"Oh, woman! guilty, blood-stained fiendess! your own words confirm it!" he passionately cried out.
"Gently, my lord, gently! Have you heard me say I murdered her?"
"You did not deny it."
"That is negative proof, very unsubstantial, as you evidently know, although you found it sufficient to condemn my son!"
"You are too much of a demon to spare her innocent life one moment when in your power. Oh, I know—I know she is dead! Dear little angel! Sweet, helpless little Erminie!"
He almost lost his dread of her in his passion of grief. His chest heaved as he buried his face in his hands, and something like a convulsive sob shook his frame. "Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of stern-browed men."
But the woman felt no remorse. No; an exultant sense of triumph—a fiendish joy filled her heart, at the proof of what she had made him suffer. She had still a fiercer pang in store for him; and waiting till he had lifted his pale face again, she began, in a low, mocking voice:
"And thinkest thou, oh, Lord De Courcy, there is no darker doom than death? Do you think vengeance such as mine is to be sated by such paltry revenge as that? Pshaw, man! You are only a novice in the art of torture, I see; though you commenced a dangerous game when you practiced first on me. Why, if I had slain her, that would have been momentary revenge, and fifty thousand lives such as hers could not sate mine. Other children might be born, years would pass, and she, in course of time, would be almost forgotten. No, my lord; such vengeance as that would never satisfy the gipsy Ketura!"
"Saints in heaven! Am I sane or mad? Oh, woman, woman! speak, and tell me truly. Does the child yet live?"
"It does!"
"Thank God! Oh, bless God for that!" he cried, passionately, while tears of joy fell fast from his eyes.
The same evil, sinister smile curled the lips of the gipsy.
"What a fool the man is!" she said, bitterly, "thanking God that her life is spared, when she will yet live to curse the hour she was born. Oh, man! can you comprehend the depths of a gipsy's hate—you, with your cold, sluggish Northern blood? Yes; she shall live; but it will be for a doom so dark that even the fiends themselves will shudder to hear it; she will live to invoke death as a blessing, and yet will not dare to die! And then I will return your Erminie to her doting grandsire, a thing so foul and polluted that the very earth will refuse her a grave. Then, Lord De Courcy, my revenge will be complete!"
His hands dropped from his face as if he had been stricken with sudden death; the sight seemed leaving his eyes; the very life seemed palsied in his heart. He was conscious, for one dizzy moment, of nothing but of the blasting sight of that terrific woman, who, with her flaming eyes piercing him like two drawn stilettoes, towered there above him, like a vision from the infernal regions.
She was calm still; that terrible, exultant smile had not left her lips; but he would sooner have seen her foaming with passion than as she looked at that moment, standing there.
"This is our second interview, lord earl," she said, while he sat speechless. "The first time I pleaded on my knees to you, and you spurned me from you as if I had been a dog. This time it should be your turn to plead; for you have almost as much at stake as I had then. If you do not choose to do so, that is your affair, not mine. The third time—when it comes—you will have realized what a gipsy's revenge is like."
"Oh, woman! if there be one spark of human nature in your savage breast, for God's sake, spare that child!" cried the earl, wrought up to a perfect agony by her words.
She stepped back a pace, and looked at him for an instant in silence. At last:
"I pleaded to you on my knees," she said, with an icy smile.
Her words gave him hope. The proud man fell on his knees before her, and held up his clasped hands in supplication. The high born Earl De Courcy knelt in wildest agony at the feet of the outcast gipsy!
Her hour of triumph had come. Folding her arms over her breast, she looked down upon him as he knelt there, with a look no words can ever describe.
"Spare her—spare her! For God's sake, spare that child!"
There was no reply. Erect, rigid and moveless as a figure in stone, she stood, looking down upon him with her blazing eyes.
"Slay her, if you will; let her go to heaven guileless and unstained—anything rather than the doom you have destined for her!"
Still no reply. With that triumphant smile—a smile such as Satan himself might have worn—she looked steadily and quietly down at the man at her feet.
"Besides, you dare not keep her!" he said, gathering courage from her silence; fancying, perhaps, it was a sign of relenting. "The officers of the law would find you out; and a worse fate than your son's would be yours."
It was an unfortunate allusion. Her brow grew black as a thunder-cloud; but she only laughed scornfully.
"Find me?" she repeated. "Yes, if they can find last year's snow, last year's partridges, or last summer's rain. Let them find me. Why, if it came to that, I could dash its brains out in one instant, before its very mother's eyes."
"Oh, worst of fiends! does there linger a human heart in your body?"
"No; it turned to stone the night I groveled in vain at your feet."
"Take any other revenge you like; haunt me, pursue me, as you will, but restore that child! She never injured you; if there is guilt anywhere, it rests on my head. Let me, therefore, suffer, and give back the child."
She smiled in silence.
"You will relent; you are a woman, and not a devil. Consent to what I ask, and if wealth be any object, you shall have the half—the whole of my fortune. Tell me you consent, and all I have in the world, together with my everlasting gratitude, will be yours."
"You should have thought of this the night you refused to grant my prayer, my lord. Will your wealth and 'every-lasting gratitude' restore my son from the dead?"
"God knows, were it in my power, I would willingly give my life to restore him and cancel the past. All that remains for me to do I will do, if you restore the child."
"Lord earl, when I knelt to you, you commanded me to get up. It is my turn now. You have been sufficiently humiliated, even to satisfy me. Rise!"
He rose, and stood before her, so faint with many emotions that he was obliged to grasp the chair for support.
"You will restore her?" he breathlessly asked.
"Never, so help me God; till my vow is fulfilled! Palsied be my heart, if it ever relents! Withered be my hand, if it ever confers a boon on you or one of your house! Blighted be my tongue, if it ever heap but curses on you! Doomed be my soul, if it ever forgives you for what you have done! Once again, lord earl, we are to meet, and then, beware!"
The last words were uttered with a maniac shriek, as she turned and fled from the room. There was a heavy fall; and the servants, rushing in in terror, found Earl De Courcy lying on the floor, with a dark stream of blood flowing from his mouth. They raised him up, but they were too late. He had ruptured an artery of the heart; and with the clotted gore still foaming around his lips, he lay there before them, stark and dead!