"Tell me all, from the beginning," said Gipsy, seating herself, and speaking in a tone as stern, and with a face as firm and rigid, as that of the grim invalid herself; but those eyes—those eyes—how they blazed!
There is little need to recapitulate the tale told to Gipsy—she related only what the reader already knows; the death of Esther by her instigation, but by his hand; and the infant left to perish in the waves.
"I suppose he left you on the shore, thinking the waves would wash you away," concluded Mrs. Oranmore, "when you were providentially saved by the same Almighty power that guarded Moses in his cradle of bulrushes. I supposed you had perished, and so did he; but the agonies of remorse I have suffered for what I have done, I can never reveal. Night and day, sleeping or waking, the last dying shrieks of Esther Oranmore have been ringing in my ears. My son married Lizzie Erliston; and his violent death was but the beginning of my living punishment. For his son's sake, I have kept my dreadful secret during life; but now, at the hour of death, a power over which I have no control compels me to reveal all. I am beyond the power of the law—I go to answer for my crimes at the bar of God; therefore, I fear not in making these disclosures. My hour has come."
"But he shall not escape!" said Gipsy, rising from the chair, on which she sat as if petrified, while listening to the story of her birth. "No! by the heaven above us both, his life shall pay for this! Woman," she continued, turning fiercely upon Mrs. Oranmore, "you shall not die until you have done justice to the child of her you have murdered! I will send for a magistrate; and you must make a deposition of all you have told me to him. Death shall not enter here yet, to cheat the gallows of its due!"
She sprang to the bell, and rang a peal that brought all the servants in the house flocking wildly into the room.
"Go to the nearest magistrate," she said, turning to the boy who had accompanied her from St. Mark's—"fly! vanish! Tell him it is a matter of life and death. Go! and be back here in ten minutes, or you shall rue it!"
The boy fled, frightened out of his wits by her fierce words and looks. Shutting the door in the faces of the others, Gipsy seated herself; and setting her teeth hard together, and clenching her hands, she fixed her eyes on the floor, and sat as immovable as if turning to stone. Mrs. Oranmore lay in silence—either not willing or not able to speak.
Ere fifteen minutes had thus passed, the boy returned, accompanied by a magistrate—a short, blustering, important personage. He bowed to Gipsy—who arose upon his entrance—and began drawing off his gloves, making some remark upon the inclemency of the weather, which she abruptly cut short, by saying:
"This woman is dying, and wishes to make a deposition. Here are writing-materials; sit down and commence—you have no time to spare."
Hurried away by her impetuosity, the little man found himself, before he was aware of it, sitting by the bedside, pen in hand, writing and listening, with many an ejaculation of wonder, horror, and amazement.