“Poor wretch! poor wretch! and so her brother lived with the world’s scorn and curses on his head—and she—did she die, Jasper?”
“No, my Theresa. She is alive yet. It was the brother died.”
“How so? how could that be? Did Kirke then relent?”
“Kirke never relented! When the girl awoke in the butcher’s chamber, with fame and honor—all that she loved in life—lost to her for ever—he bade her look out of the window—what think you she saw there, Theresa?”
“What?”
“The thing, that an hour before was her brother, dangling in the accursed noose from the gibbet.”
“And God did not speak in thunder.”
“To the girl’s mind, He spoke—for that went astray at once, jangled and jarred, and out of tune forever! There was a sacrifice, Theresa.”
“A wicked one, and so it ended, wickedly. We’ll none of such sacrifices, Jasper. If we should ever have to die, which God avert in his mercy, any death of violence or horror, we will die tranquilly and together. Will we not, dearest?”
“As you said but now, may the good God guard us from such a fate, Theresa; and yet,” he added, looking at her fixedly, and with a strange expression, “we may be nearer to it than we think for, even now.”