“’Twas for that I bid thee hither,” replied the dame, faintly. “And, verily, I must despatch, while life yet serves me, or I shall be as the condemned of the parable.”
She paused here; and the short, strained breaths which she exhaled, with her increased paleness, showed that she had exerted herself beyond her powers. After a brief interval, however, during which Bernard regarded her anxiously, but made no oral observation, she appeared to recover herself, and resumed.
“The boy—the man, now,” she said—“Hildebrand Clifford; ’twas of him I would speak.”
“He is well,” answered Bernard, “and, as I am advised, in England—in Lantwell.”
Though she had hitherto seemed quite helpless, his auditor, on hearing this unexpected intelligence, abruptly raised herself in the bed, and gazed doubtingly in his face.
“In Lantwell?” she said.
“Even so,” returned Bernard.
“Then, can I not ease my poor conscience,” observed the dame, feebly wringing her hands. “No! no! ’twere a greater sin to wrong him, old and lonely as I shall leave him.”
“Yet wrong not thyself, or thy precious soul,” suggested Bernard, with his wonted sternness.
The dame shuddered.