"Dark! yes, they are dark to thee now, but I can make them clear as the sun at noon; ay, proud Robert of Lester! they shall scorch thee! wither thy soul! cause thy heart to shrink! thy neck to bow! thy head to lie in the very dust! Oh, will not the lowest slave among the vassals that wait thy word pity thee, when thine ears receive what I would reveal!"
The wild prophetic air, the energy and taunting scorn with which she spoke, alarmed while it enraged him.
"Madness! Woman—fiend! monster of deformity! speak, I command thee."
"Thou command me, Robert Lester! Well, there will be a time! Wouldst thou know what I have to reveal?" she asked, fixing on him her scorching eyes.
"Beware if thou art mocking my fears! I will pluck thy tongue from thy throat, and fling it to my hounds if thou hast trifled with me!"
"What I will tell thee will be so true, thou wilt indeed wish the tongue that spoke it had been plucked from its roots ere it had given it utterance. Nevertheless, the time has come for thee to hear; and I may no longer delay the recital of what, for thy sake," she added, with a softer manner, "I would bear close locked in my breast to the grave. But," she concluded, in a lofty tone, "what is to be revealed must be made known, though the heavens were to fall and the earth to quake. Who shall stay the hand of fate when once it is lifted to destroy?"
"Elpsy," said Lester, in a deep and earnest voice, unable to throw off the presentiment of coming evil her words had awakened, "I would believe thou hadst something to make known to me either of good or evil, though of the latter alone I know thou art the minister. Yet, if thou hast aught to say, I am ready to listen, good mother!" he added, in a mild and persuasive tone.
"Robert More," she said, in a voice of super-human softness, while the frigid and austere character of her face passed away, and her features assumed a more womanly and gentler expression; "those last few words were kindly spoken, and became thee: they have touched my heart—for even Elpsy has a heart," she said, with sarcastic bitterness; "for those kind expressions I would withhold from thee the knowledge of the doom that awaits thee. But it is not for me," she added, in an enthusiastic voice, and with returning wildness of the eye; "it is not for one like me to refuse to obey the decree that has gone forth against thee. As a mortal, I pity thee! as a woman, I could weep for thee! and as—No," she interrupted herself, and muttered, "no, he shall not know all now; he shall not learn all till my soul is on the wing; then, then will it be time enough!" She then added aloud, "as the minister of the invisible world, I must do as I am commanded. Robert More, if you can bear to hear what I am doomed to tell, follow me!"
"Nay, Elpsy, speak to me here."
"Obey me!" she commanded, in an authoritative voice, that had a singular power over his will, and which he had not the ability to resist.