“You are the child of its lord, and he is dying.”
“But I am not his heiress.”
“Before morning you will have proof that you are his child. You know surely how to work on the repentance of a dying man. Go to him, Zana; this estate and others are his—no claim, no drawback—nothing that the English call an entail on it. One dash of his hand, and it is yours.”
“But it was hers, not his—Marston Court belonged to Lord Clare’s wife,” I said, recoiling from the idea of possessing wealth that had once belonged to my mother’s rival.
“It must be wrested from the Clares—it must be an inheritance for you and your people, Zana,” he said, riding close to me, as Jupiter picked his way along the broken road, which was left almost impassable by the storm. And he added,
“If that man dies without enriching you and your tribe by the spoils of his marriage, the curse of Papita will fall on you.”
“It is here already,” I answered, shuddering; “with nothing to trust—nothing to love—deceived, cheated, outraged. What curse can equal this?”
“Have you not deserved it?” he questioned, sternly.
“How?”
“Where was your heart? Had not the blood of our people grown pale in it? Did you give it to a Clare, and hope to go uncursed? The cry of your mother’s blood, is it nothing?”