"The same."
"I would have sworn it! Go on."
She smiled grimly, and then continued:
"For many days he was devoted to his victim; but amused her, when she besought him to heal her wounded honour by the words of the holy mass of marriage, with idle excuses; and so she was put off from day to day, till she found there was life within her bosom, and that she was about to become a wedless mother.
"Gradually he got to neglect her, and daily grew more and more estranged from her; and at length, heading a secret conspiracy, his tower became the rendezvous of insurgent leaders, and day and night rung with bacchanalian revels. Lonely she sat, evening after evening, in her solitary chamber, with her face resting on her hand, and her eyes looking south over the sea; her thoughts winging their way to her lowly cot and its humble occupant, who, perhaps, mourned his daughter as having perished in the deep.
"At length she became a mother. He was away at the time, at the head of a party of conspirators bound on an expedition of treason and bloodshed. On the third day afterward he returned. She heard the tramp of horses, and with hurried joy opening the lattice—for, notwithstanding his neglect, she loved him still—saw him riding rapidly towards the tower, followed only by a single rider, and leading by the rein a palfrey, on which was mounted a beautiful lady; she saw that her head drooped, that she appeared sick and faint, and that he supported her by passing one arm about her waist. A pang of jealousy, the first she had ever known, shot through her bosom. They reined up beneath the window: she saw him take her in his arms from the saddle, and bear her within the tower. Then, with surprise, she heard him, in a loud tone, give commands for all the defences of the castle to be put up, as if he expected to encounter a siege. She returned again to her couch faint and sick at heart, and waited his appearance. An hour elapsed ere he came, and painful were the thoughts that agitated her bosom. When at length she heard his footsteps, she rose to meet him with a smile of love, with her infant extended in her arms. His dress was disordered and bloody, as if he was just from conflict; and she at once saw, for affection is quick and suspicious ever, that his brow was dark and angry.
"'Ha!' he cried, scornfully, 'what have we here?'
"'The pledge of your former love,' she said, with gentle reproof, offering it to his arms.
"'By the head of St. Peter!' he exclaimed, pushing her rudely away, and fixing upon her a terrible look (which but one other living can give," said Elpsy, with peculiar emphasis, fixing her gaze upon Lester), "'I brought thee not hither to breed brats! Fling it from the window!'
"And, without deigning to cast a glance upon it, he strode across the chamber, while, with a cry of pain and mortal anguish, she sunk down upon the floor. He turned and looked back at her for a few seconds, and then said fiercely,