"The good lady is still unwell, then, is she?"
"She is dead."
"Dead!" Richard staggered to a chair, and pressed his hands to his forehead. The only creature in the world on whom his slender hopes were built had, then, departed from it! "When did she die?" inquired he in a hollow voice, "and how?"
"On the evening of the day you left, and, as I believe, of a disease which one like you will scarcely credit—of a broken heart."
Her manner and tone were hostile; but that moved not Richard one whit; the cold and measured tones in which she had alluded to his mother's death angered him, on the other hand, exceedingly. If his mother had died of a broken heart, it was this woman's falsehood that had broken it; and yet she could speak with calmness and unconcern of the loss which had left him utterly forlorn! He forgot all his late remorse; and in his eyes glittered malice and cruel rage.
"I do not fear you," cried she, in answer to this look; "for the wretched have no fear. The hen will do battle with the fox, the rabbit with the stoat, to save her young. If I can not save my husband, I will save my son. I have come down here to do it. You are known to me now for what you are—a jail-bird. If you dare to meet my Charley's honest face again, I will tell him who and what you are."
"Did Mrs. Basil tell you that, then?"
"Thus far she did," cried Harry, pointing to the ticket which Richard had taken from her hand. "Is not that enough? She warned me with her latest breath against you. 'Beware of him,' said she; 'and yet pursue him, if you would save your husband and your son. Where Solomon is, there will this man also be. Pursue, pursue!' I did but stay to close her eyes."
"And so she knew me, did she?"
"She knew enough, as I do. Of course she could not guess—who could?—your shameful past, the fruit of which is there!" and again she pointed to the ticket.