I was too much vexed and annoyed with myself to return to the Hall, and I rambled on until I found myself opposite to the fishing-house. The river lay before me gleaming in the setting sun. Everything around was calm, peaceful, and beautiful; but there was no rest, no peace in my heart.
As I approached the rustic bridge from which the wretched Alice had attempted suicide, I perceived a human figure seated on a stone on the bank of the river, in a crouching, listless attitude. This excited my curiosity, and catching at anything that might divert my thoughts from the unpleasant train in which they had been running for the last hour, I struck off the path I had been pursuing, which led directly to the public road, and soon reached the object in question.
Wrapped in an old grey mantle, with a red silk handkerchief tied over her head, her chin resting between her long bony hands, and her eyes shut, or bent intently on the ground, I recognized, with a shudder of aversion and disgust, the remarkable face of Dinah North.
Her grizzled locks had partly escaped from their bandage, and fell in thin, straggling lines over her low, wrinkled forehead. The fire of her deep-seated dark eyes was hidden beneath their drooping lids, and she was muttering to herself some strange unintelligible gibberish. She did not notice me until I purposely placed myself between her and the river which rolled silently and swiftly at her feet.
Without manifesting the least surprise at the unceremonious manner in which I had disturbed her reverie, she slowly raised her witch-like countenance, and for a few seconds surveyed me with a sullen stare. As if satisfied with my identity, she accosted me with the same sarcastic writhing of the upper lip, which on our first interview had given me the key to her character.
"You, too, are a Moncton, and like the rest of that accursed race, are fair and false. Your dark eyes all fire—your heart as cold as ice. Proud as Lucifer—inexorable as the grave; woe to those who put any trust in a Moncton! they are certain of disappointment—sure to be betrayed. Pass by, young sir, I have no doubt that you are like the rest of your kin. I wish them no good, but evil, so you had better not cross my path."
"Your hatred, Dinah, is more to be coveted than your friendship. To incur the first, augurs some good in the person thus honoured; to possess the last, would render us worthy of your curse."
"Ha, ha!" returned the grim fiend, laughing ironically, "your knowledge of the world has given you a bitter spirit. I wish you joy of the acquisition. Time will increase its acrimony. But I like your bluntness of speech, and prophesy from it that you are born to overcome the malignity of your enemies."
"And you," and I fixed my eyes steadily on her hideous countenance, "for what end were you born?"
"To be the curse of others," she answered, with a grim smile, which displayed those glittering white teeth within her faded, fleshless lips, which looked like a row of pearls in a Death's head; and there flashed from her swart eye a red light which made the blood curdle in my veins, as she continued in the same taunting strain—