"Fear me not, lady!" she said, slowly and with mysterious emphasis, as she gazed on the face of the fair girl, her eyes gloating with a diabolical light; "I would not harm thy body, while I hold the key to thy soul."
"Fearful woman, if woman, or even human, thou art, what terrible meaning lies hidden beneath your words?"
"Thou lovest Robert of Lester?"
"Elpsy, I will not be questioned. Leave me," said Kate, her brow glowing between maidenly shame and anger.
But Elpsy, without heeding her command or seeming to observe her emotion, said, with the sardonic quiet that malice can put on when it would wound,
"Thou didst despatch a messenger to Castle More the last night, lady?"
"How knowest thou this?" she demanded, evasively, startled at her knowledge of what she believed known only to the parties immediately interested.
"Is there aught, daughter of the house of Bellamont, that happens among mortals," she said, in the elevated tone of mystery and supernatural power she was wont to assume at such times, "that Elpsy the sorceress is ignorant of?"
"I know thou art a dread and fearful woman," said Kate, with a thrill of aversion, "and have power to do evil, which, rather than good, I have heard it is thy delight to do."
"Ha, ha! thou hast well spoken," she responded, with a chuckling laugh, that caused the maiden, with all her firmness, to shudder and start back to the extremity of the pavilion.