"Don't be afraid of me—imperial women are always gracious. You shall stay at the court. Only one thing I must tell you. That woman, Brown, shall be exiled to Siberia—that is where I get the ermine for my mantles, you know; but cold, oh, so cold! Good enough for her, though. Come close and I will tell you something. She ties my arms—she straps me down in bed—the false traitoress! But she shall go, and I will give you her place. Only don't speak loud, she might hear us. Hush—hush—hist!"
A slight noise broke the stillness of the house, and hushed the maniac's whispers. Putting a finger to her lips she moved into the hall on tiptoe. The door leading to the south wing was open. With a cry that brought an echo of affright from her child, she darted through and rushed toward the room where Thrasher had been confined that night—her garments fluttering wildly, and the jewels with their innumerable pendants tinkling against each other in her hair and on her bosom.
Rose followed, striving to cry out, but terror deprived her of the power.
The room was dark, for the bolts of those shutters had rusted in their sockets—dark, except a circle of red light that lay like a fiery wheel in the centre of the room. Ellen Mason rushed toward this opening, and swooping down upon her knees, like an evil-omened bird greedy for prey, looked down into the vault beneath. She saw the glitter of gold heaped on the stone floor, with a blaze of lamp light pouring over it. Heard the clink as it was drawn from the inner vault. She saw several persons busy with the gold piling it in heaps. The most prominent figure was a young man with jet black hair and eyes full of trouble, examining a block of gold which lay on the top of that glittering heap.
With a shriek from which the words, "It is mine—mine—all mine!" broke fiercely out, the woman half rose, flung out her arms, and made a plunge. Rose Mason came up that instant and grasped desperately at her dress. A fragment of the old brocade was left in her hand—a low, dull sound, a simultaneous shriek of dismay from the people in the vault, and all was still as death.
Rose had fallen with her face to the floor, white as the marble on which she lay, and almost as lifeless.
Paul, disturbed by the noise overhead, had retreated from the treasures, dropped the brick, and was looking up when that unhappy woman plunged downward upon the gold. Her hands were extended, and made one grasp into the heap. The old coins rattled down to the pavement—her temple struck a corner of the Gold Brick, and a cluster of diamonds which she had fastened there was driven through deep into the brain. She struggled a little, gasped once or twice, stretched her limbs out upon the treasure, and died there.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
THE DOCTOR'S RIDE.
If the doctor was an eccentric man, he could be, when the occasion demanded it, both kind and thoughtful. More than once during Katharine's confinement he had ridden far beyond his circuit, and visited her in that lonely prison. No one was ever made aware of the fact, and he alone, of all that neighborhood, with one exception, was informed that Nelson Thrasher was also an inmate of the same prison. From the good old people it had been kept with religious delicacy. They knew that Katharine had a right to her freedom, and could now return home at pleasure; but she had written to ask more time. Duties, she said, to her fellow-prisoners kept her among them yet a little longer. She was free to depart, but the hospital needed her, and with the warden's consent she remained in voluntary service, teaching those whom she would soon leave behind how to tend and comfort the sick as she had done. This was an appeal that the old people could understand, so the lone mother submitted quietly to a few more months of solitude, and the Thrashers said to each other: