But neither natural inhumanity, nor revenge itself, were the sole feelings gratified by this sentence. That night, as Madame De Marke sat alone, she rubbed her withered hands together with a chuckling laugh, and said to herself,—
“I have ’em safe now. The child is dead. The girl who got it out of the way is in the State prison; and even when she gets out, her testimony won’t be received in any court in this country, for convicts are not competent witnesses, ha! ha! This Catharine,” she added, with sudden bitterness, “she’s dead, no doubt, by this time. People soon die, in New York,” she added, with cold-blooded calculation, “if they are starving and delicate. She looked like a ghost—had a cough—hacked away like anything.”
The old woman rubbed her hands again with savage glee, and her eyes fairly emitted light in the darkness. “To boast she had married my son! I’ll teach ’em all to cross my path. I’ll teach ’em. I’ll teach ’em.”
Mumbling this, she went about her room, preparatory to retiring, in order to see again that all the fastenings were safe. Nor was her sleep, that night, broken by remorseful dreams, as might have been supposed. God’s time had not come yet, if, indeed, it was to come in this world.
CHAPTER XXIX.
SHELTERED AT LAST.
When the members of the Board had all assembled, Catharine was again subjected to the ordeal of an examination. This repetition of what seemed to her an uncalled-for curiosity was almost more than she could endure; and if it had not been for the kind Methodist, Mrs. Barr, who continually interfered in her behalf, she would, more than once, have broken down in a passion of tears.
“You can retire now to the adjoining room,” said the Lady-Philanthropist, at last. “Meantime, we will take your case into consideration. But,” she added, looking around on her fellow-members, “it is not clear to me, by any means, that you are a deserving object of our charity. You appear to have a thoroughly hard and ungrateful heart, and to want that penitence so becoming in one who has sinned greatly.”
Poor Catharine! When she found herself alone, she could no longer restrain herself, but sobbed out her grief and mortification in a passion of weeping.
“Oh! if I could find anything to do—anywhere—no matter with whom,” she cried, in bitter grief, “I would leave this cruel place this moment.” The poor girl took her hands from her eyes, and looked around, half rising as if about to go. “But no! no!” she said, sitting down once more, and burying her face again. “I cannot be a burden on those poor Irish people any longer. I must stay away, even if I starve. I must put up with any indignity. Oh, George! George! how I suffer, could you but know what I have suffered!”
The hum of voices, in the adjoining room, occasionally increased to almost an altercation. But Catharine, absorbed by grief, did not notice this. She remained silently weeping for quite half an hour, when her attention was suddenly aroused by a hand laid upon her shoulder.