“Oh, how thankful I am that thou art come!” said the Lady Stradawn, mistaking him for her son Murdoch, their voices being a good deal like to each other, and opening the door, pale and trembling, with a lamp in her hand, which the gust immediately extinguished. “A plague on the wind, my lamp is out! But oh, I am thankful that thou art come! ’Tis fearful to be left alone in the house with a dead man, and one, too——Oh ’twas fearful!”
“Dead!” cried Sir Patrick, with an accent of horror, which might have betrayed him, but for the agitation which then possessed her whom he addressed. “A dead man, saidst thou?”
“Aye!” replied the lady, in a hollow tone, “aye! I saw that thou hadst yearnings. Yet, after all, it was but giving him ease, by ridding him of a lingering life of pain. It was kindness, in truth, to help him away from such misery. Yet, ’tis no marvel that thou, who art his very blood, should have some compunction. But thou mayest be at rest now, for he is gone beyond thy help, or that of any one else.”
“Gone!” exclaimed Sir Patrick again—“Gone! how did he die?”
“Horribly! most horribly!” replied the lady, shuddering. “It was fearful to behold him in his agonies! Knowing, as I did, the potency of the poison, I could hardly have believed that the old man would have taken so long to die.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Sir Patrick, involuntarily.
“Aye, it was horrible!” replied the lady; “horrible indeed, as thou wouldst have said if thou hadst seen it. For a moment, the poison seemed to have given him new strength, and he rose from his chair as if he would have done vengeance on me. ’Twas fearful to behold him!”
“Art sure he is quite dead?” said Sir Patrick again.
“Aye,” replied the lady, “as dead as his son Walter; so dead, as to make thee surely the Laird of Stradawn, the moment that thou shalt have made as sicker of Patrick, as we may now soon hope thou wilt be able to do. I did but help him, as I was saying, out of the pains and wretchedness of old age and dotage. Yet it was an awful work for me. And oh, his last look was fearful! I wish I may ever be able to get rid of it! Would that thou couldst have steeled thyself up to have done it thyself Murdoch! But come in—come in quickly! Hast thou secured the prisoner?”
“I have,” replied Sir Patrick, now exerting a certain degree of command over his feelings; “he will be here anon.”