The watchman immediately threw down the lantern, and with a great clattering of his iron-shod shoes, rushed across the bridge.
“Alas!—Alas!” cried Ada, clasping her hands. “What can all this mean? Who is this poor mad creature?—And who that fearful man? The mystery in which my birth, name, and fate is involved, grows more and more inexplicable. Was it of me she talked so strangely and so wildly? Oh! If she could but breathe to me one word, to assure me that Jacob Gray was not my father, how richly would the terrors of this fearful night be repaid!”
Ada knelt by the body of Maud as she spoke, and placed her hand over her heart, to endeavour to trace some sign of vitality.
“She lives—she lives!” suddenly cried Ada, as she felt the regular beating of the organ of life. “Perchance the villain has only struck her. He may not, after casting away his knife, have had the means of harming her very seriously.”
A deep groan now came from the lips of the insensible woman.
“Speak—oh, speak!” cried Ada.
Maud opened her eyes. They glared with the wild fire of insanity on Ada.
“Do you know me?” said the girl.
“Know you?—Know you? Are you an angel or a devil?”
“Alas!” cried Ada. “There is no hope.”