"Pray, hear me one moment," pleaded Mrs. Carleton, "I am in the greatest distress."
"What care I for your distress, have I not enough of my own without listening to yours? Off with you."
"Only a few words," again entreated Mrs. Carleton. "I want to—"
"You may want, I heed that not. I want myself; I have nothing to give you. I would not give you anything, if I had it. You are intruders on this island. I saw you arrive, and the men you brought with you. Ha! ha! You meant them to land here. Where are they now? I saw it all, ha! ha! ha! You may wait for their return; they have made a long voyage, so long that they will never come back; glad, glad, I hate the accursed sex, they caused all my suffering; twenty years entombed here, through their state of mad intoxication. If only one of that great band of pirates had remained sober, I might have got away."
"Do let me ask you, have you seen my child?" said Mrs. Carleton. "I entreat you to tell me."
"See your child. I saw you take food to one of the accursed sex. I saw you try to make him live. I despise you for it. Why should he live to drink, drink, and bring misery on me and all women? I tell you again I hate them for their love of drink. I hold them in contempt for their weakness. The ocean did well to swallow them down, just as their brothers swallowed down the fiery drink on that fearful night when the great tower fell and crushed a hundred of them."
"Do, I implore you, say if my child strayed anywhere in your sight?" cried Mrs. Carleton, overcome with anguish. "We have lost her."
"Lost her; lost her; seen her;" echoed Louisita very slowly, and making a long pause as if to collect her thoughts, she added, "The child was young and the wolf was hungry."
As Mrs. Carleton translated the last sentence to Miss Vyvyan, she fell fainting into Anna's arms.
"Do not heed what she says, dear Ada; let us believe the best until we know the worst. Cora may have fallen asleep in some of the nooks in the building, and so did not hear us call her."