“Be in haste,” answered the earl impatiently, drawing forth his watch. “It is now past midnight.”
The old woman drew aside, and by the smoky light Turner saw that she was searching for something in the folds of her dress.
“Here,” she said, coming forth, “this trinket may be worth something to you. Our people would have crushed it up for the gold, but I would not let them.”
She held it in her hand, so that the light fell directly upon an exquisite little miniature formed like a shell, which the reader will remember as a portion of the plunder which Chaleco brought from his expedition to Seville. That side of the case was open which held the female portrait, and the light fell with peculiar brightness upon the features.
As Lord Clare saw it he recoiled, drew a sharp breath, and the sudden paleness that crept over his face was terrible.
“This, and in your hands?” he said, in a husky voice, fixing his enlarged eyes on the Sibyl. “How dare you, fiend—how dare you?”
The old woman gave a low hiss with her tongue, and looking hard at Aurora, said, in a clear, sharp tone, “Remember the oath; you will have need; remember this face too.”
Lord Clare snatched the miniature from her hand with a violence that made the case shut with a snap, that seemed like the click of a pistol before it goes off. But my mother had seen the face, and though it made little impression at the time, when everything seemed like a dream, she remembered it in after years.
“Now,” said the earl, more fiercely than he had spoken before that night, “prepare her at once, I will remain here no longer.”
The old woman withdrew, leading my mother with her. They went into some side passage, and Turner lost sight of them, for he was too deeply interested in the movements of Lord Clare to leave his position.