“Yes; made me promise not to divulge it upon any condition whatsoever. After this I was ill awhile, and too weak to work out in the fields. No one would take me into their house because I had a base-born child. This made me mad. I cursed the poor infant for bringing its mother into shame. I tried to destroy it, but my heart failed me, and one night I abandoned it to its fate. Ah! there’s nothing like misfortune to harden the heart; it will make a mother murder her own child, and there is no worse crime in the world than that.”
CHAPTER CLX.
THE ACCUSATIONS MADE AGAINST LAURA STANBRIDGE.
Mrs. Grover, or, more properly speaking, Mrs. Kensett, relict of Evershal Kensett, Esq., deceased, had spoken the words, which form the conclusion of the last chapter, in a voice which was tremulous and at times inaudible from emotion. After this she fell into a reverie.
The rain still pattered upon the leaves, the lightning still dashed its gleams through the wood, the thunder still rolled menacingly.
By these flashes of lightning Laura Stanbridge might have been seen pale, paralysed, and crouched rather than seated upon the log.
Now she knew by whom she had been captured, and she knew also that she was in imminent danger.
“Help—help!” she cried, in a loud voice. “Help—help!”
Her companion was awakened by these cries.
“You may shout as loud as you like—nobody will hear you. At the same time, if you do so again, I will kill you.”