“You are yielding! He will yet be saved! Oh, I knew the iron-heart would soften!” she cried out, with maniac exultation, taking hope from his silence.
“My poor woman, you deceive yourself. I can do nothing for your son,” said the earl, sadly.
“What! Do you still refuse? Oh, it cannot be! I am going mad, I think! Tell me—tell me that my son will live!”
“Woman, I have no power over your son’s life.”
“Oh, you have—you have! Do you think he could live one single day among those with whom you would send him? As you hope for pardon on that last dread day, pardon my son!”
“It is all in vain. Rise, madam.”
“You refuse?”
“I do. Rise!”
With the fearful bound of a wild beast, she sprung to her feet, and, awful in her rage, like a tigress robbed of her young, she stood before him. Even the stern earl drew back in dismay.
“Then, heart of steel, hear ME!” she cried, raising one long arm toward heaven, and speaking in a voice terrific in its very depth of despair. “Tiger-heart, listen to me! From this moment I vow, before God and all his angels, to devote my whole life to revenge on you! Living, may ruin, misery, and despair, equal to mine, be your portion; dead, may you never rest in the earth you sprung from! And, when standing before the judgment-seat of God, you sue for pardon, may He hurl your miserable soul back to perdition for an answer! May my curse descend to your children and children’s children forever! May misery here and hereafter be their portion! May every earthly and eternal evil follow a wronged mother’s curse!”