“You could take me to the angel,” said Britton, in soothing accents.
Maud laughed hysterically, and pointed to the sky, as she said,—“Take you! Take you! With the weight of so much blood upon you! No, no. Were you lighter you could go, Andrew Britton. What did my husband say when you killed him? What was his last word? You could not forget it. It must be scorched on your heart. Tell it to me, Andrew Britton.”
“You rave,” said Britton; “do you know that Frank Hartleton, who used to live at Learmont, has become a magistrate?”
“Do you know,” cried Maud, “that there’s blood wherever Andrew Britton goes? If the soft dew of Heaven falls upon him, it turns to gore—he dips his hands into a pure streamlet, and the limpid waters turn to blood—his drink is blood, when it touches his lips—spots of thick clotted gore fall on him wheresoever he goes—it is the ancient curse of the Egyptians that is upon him! Ha! Ha! Ha! Blood—blood, Andrew Britton!—Blood!”
“Devil!” muttered Britton.
“I will haunt you!” continued Maud—“I will shout after you as you go—There steps a murderer! I will proclaim your calling to all—’tis one of deep iniquity—you are branded by the mark of Cain—you have sinned before Heaven in taking the life which thou could’st not restore or even comprehend! Wretched—scared—cursed Andrew Britton! I will be with you when you lie writhing in your last agony—when you try to pray, I will clap my hands and shout ‘The Smithy!’ in your ears. When you gasp for water to quench the fever that shall then be consuming your heart, I will answer you by ‘The Smithy!’ When you shriek to Heaven in your dark despair, I will answer you shriek for shriek, and the words of my vengeance shall be ‘The Old Smithy!’ Ha! Ha! Ha!—The murder at the Old Smithy! When the day comes, that the graves give up their dead, then will appear a sight to blast you from the Old Smithy! ’Tis hidden now; but the earth will crack, and with a hideous likeness of what it once was, the form of your victim will pursue you to accuse you before the judgment-seat of God! Then—then you will shriek—yell for mercy!—You, who showed none,—and the blue sky shall open to let you go down—down!—Encircled in the loathsome embrace of slimy awful things, that will lick your shivering form with tongues of flame!”
“Peace, wretch,” cried Britton.
At the same moment he lifted his arm, and in his hand gleamed a knife.
“Hold!” cried Maud, “you dare not!”
Sir Frederick Hartleton raised his hand. Britton slowly dropped his murdering arm.