"Me!"
This exclamation came from Faustina, who turned deadly pale, and stared wildly at the speaker. Indeed her eyes and her face could be compared to nothing else but two great black set in a marble mask.
"Me!"
"Aye, mem, e'en just for yer ain sel', and na ither, forbye it be his lairdship's sel'," replied the old man, bowing with outward humility and secret satisfaction, for Cuthbert cordially disapproved and disliked Faustina.
"Horror! I see how it is! The dead body of the black woman has been cast up by the sea, as I knew it would be, and we shall be guillotined—no!—hanged, hanged by the neck till we are dead!" she cried, wringing and twisting her hands in deadly terror.
"I wish to Heaven you may be, for an incorrigible fool!" muttered the viscount, in irrepressible anger; for, you see, his passion for this woman was not of a nature to preclude the possibility of his falling into a furious passion with her upon occasions like this. "What madness has seized you now?" he continued. "There is no danger; you have no cause to be alarmed. They have probably come about the murder of Ailsie Dunbar, Satan burn them! Cuthbert, what are you lingering here for? Go, see what it is!"
The old man bowed lowly, and left the room.
"Faustina!" exclaimed the viscount, as soon as Cuthbert had gone, "your folly will be the ruin of us both some day—will lead to discovery! Can you not let the black woman, as you call her, rest? Why will you be so indiscreet?"
"Oh, it is you who are indiscreet now," exclaimed Faustina, clasping her hands and glancing towards Mrs. MacDonald, whose sleep seemed too deep to be real.
"Try to govern yourself, then!" said the viscount.