“Lord earl, when I knelt to you, you commanded me to get up. It is my turn now. You have been sufficiently humiliated, even to satisfy me. Rise!”
He rose, and stood before her, so faint with many emotions that he was obliged to grasp the chair for support.
“You will restore her?” he breathlessly asked.
“Never, so help me God; till my vow is fulfilled! Palsied be my heart, if it ever relents! Withered be my hand, if it ever confers a boon on you or one of your house! Blighted be my tongue, if it ever heap but curses on you! Doomed be my soul, if it ever forgives you for what you have done! Once again, lord earl, we are to meet, and then, beware!”
The last words were uttered with a maniac shriek, as she turned and fled from the room. There was a heavy fall; and the servants, rushing in in terror, found Earl De Courcy lying on the floor, with a dark stream of blood flowing from his mouth. They raised him up, but they were too late. He had ruptured an artery of the heart; and with the clotted gore still foaming around his lips, he lay there before them, stark and dead!
CHAPTER XIV.
THE NEW HOME.
“Yellow sheaves from rich Ceres the cottage had crowned, Green rushes were strewed on the floor; The casements sweet woodbine crept wantonly round, And decked the sod-seats at the door.” —Cunningham.
With that last terrible denunciation on her lips, Ketura had fled from the room, from the house, out into the night.
Half delirious with mingled triumph, fiendish joy, and the pitch of passion into which she had wrought herself, she walked with rapid, excited strides along, heedless of whither she went, until she suddenly ran with stunning force against another pedestrian who was coming toward her.