And the strange, sad woman went with Griselda into the carriage and to Griselda's home.
Old Charlotte, the nurse, met them at the door. She was very white and she trembled as if with fear.
Then Griselda seemed to awaken from a dream.
"My child?" she asked, excitedly.
"He is gone," replied old Charlotte, the nurse.
Griselda flew to the chamber where she had left him. There stood the little cradle where he had lain, but the cradle was empty.
"Who has taken him away?" cried Griselda, sinking upon her knees and stretching her hands in agony to heaven.
"Death took him away but an hour ago," said old Charlotte, the nurse.
Then Griselda thought of his fevered face and his pitiful little moans and sighs; of the guileful flatteries of Ambition that had deafened her mother ears to the pleadings of her sick babe; of the brilliant theatre and the applause of royalty and of the last moments of her lonely, dying child.
And Griselda arose and tore the jewels from her breast and threw them far from her and cried: "O God, it is my punishment! I am alone."