"No," he said, recoiling.
"To give you my dying malediction—to curse you with my latest breath! I hate you, Sir Jasper Kingsland, falsest of all mankind! and if the dead can return and torment the living, then do you beware of me!"
She spoke in panting gasps, the death-rattle sounding in her skinny throat. Shocked and scandalized, the rector interposed:
"My good woman, don't—for pity's sake, don't say such horrible things!"
But she never heeded him.
"I hate you!" she said, with a last effort. "I die hating you, and I curse you with a dying woman's curse! May your life be a life of torment and misery and remorse! May your son's life be blighted and ruined! May he become an outcast among men! May sin and shame follow him forever, and all of his abhorred race!"
Her voice died away. She glared helplessly up from the pillow. A deep, stern, terrible "Amen!" came from her daughter's lips; then, with a spasm, she half leaped from the bed, and fell back with a gurgling cry—dead!
"She is gone!" said the rector, with a shudder. "Heaven have mercy on her sinful soul!"
The baronet staggered back from the bed.
"I never saw a more horrible sight!" continued the Reverend Cyrus. "I never heard such horrible words! No wonder it has unmanned you, Sir Jasper. Pray sit down and drink this."