‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Alas, no. It is a year since we heard.—But master, if you ask me to give her a letter or a paper, I will do so, if I have to beg my way to London to find her. I have been punished for not speaking out before. Indeed, indeed, sir, you may trust me.’
He looked into her face with a deep unfathomable glance for some moments; but the girl returned his gaze as steadily.
‘I think I can,’ he said at length. ‘Now, repeat after me: “I swear that the paper intrusted to my care shall be delivered to the person for whom it is intended; and that I will never part with it until it is safely and securely delivered.”’
The woman repeated the words with simple solemnity.
‘Now,’ he said, at the same time producing the paper he had written with such pain and care, ‘I deliver this into your hands, and may heaven bless and prosper your undertaking. Take great care, for it contains a precious secret, and never part with it while life remains.’
The paper was a curious-looking document enough, folded small, but bearing nothing outside to betray the secret it contained. We shall see in the future how it fared.
The girl glanced at the folded paper, and thrust it rapidly in her bosom. A smile of peace and tranquillity passed over the dying man’s face, and he gave her a look of intense gratitude. At this moment another woman entered the room. She was tall and thin, with a face of grave determination, and a mouth and chin denoting a firmness amounting to cruelty. There was a dangerous light in her basilisk eyes at this moment, as she gave the servant a glance of intense hate and malice—a look which seemed to search out the bottom of her soul.
‘Margaret, what are you doing here? Leave the room at once. How often have I told you never to come in here.’
Margaret left; and the woman with the snaky eyes busied herself silently about the sickroom. The dying man watched her in a dazed fascinated manner, as a bird turns to watch the motions of a serpent; and he shivered as he noticed the feline way in which she moistened her thin lips. He tried to turn his eyes away, but failed. Then, as if conscious of his feelings, the woman said: ‘Well, do you hate me worse than usual to-day?’