What was to be done next? was the question that I asked myself. As for
Lucy, she would fain have submitted to the doom that lay upon her. Her
gentleness and piety, under the pressure of so horrible a life, seemed
over-passive to me. She never complained. Mrs. Clarke complained more
than ever. As for me, I was more in love with the real Lucy than ever;
but I shrunk from the false similitude with an intensity proportioned to
my love. I found out by instinct that Mrs. Clarke had occasional
temptations to leave Lucy. The good lady’s nerves were shaken, and, from
what she said, I could almost have concluded that the object of the
Double was to drive away from Lucy this last, and almost earliest friend.
At times, I could scarcely bear to own it, but I myself felt inclined to
turn recreant; and I would accuse Lucy of being too patient—too resigned.
One after another, she won the little children of Coldholme. (Mrs.
Clarke and she had resolved to stay there, for was it not as good a place
as any other, to such as they? and did not all our faint hopes rest on
Bridget—never seen or heard of now, but still we trusted to come back, or
give some token?) So, as I say, one after another, the little children
came about my Lucy, won by her soft tones, and her gentle smiles, and
kind actions. Alas! one after another they fell away, and shrunk from
her path with blanching terror; and we too surely guessed the reason why.
It was the last drop. I could bear it no longer. I resolved no more to
linger around the spot, but to go back to my uncle, and among the learned
divines of the city of London, seek for some power whereby to annul the
curse.
My uncle, meanwhile, had obtained all the requisite testimonials relating
to Lucy’s descent and birth, from the Irish lawyers, and from Mr.
Gisborne. The latter gentleman had written from abroad (he was again
serving in the Austrian army), a letter alternately passionately
self-reproachful and stoically repellant. It was evident that when he
thought of Mary—her short life—how he had wronged her, and of her violent
death, he could hardly find words severe enough for his own conduct; and
from this point of view, the curse that Bridget had laid upon him and
his, was regarded by him as a prophetic doom, to the utterance of which
she was moved by a Higher Power, working for the fulfilment of a deeper
vengeance than for the death of the poor dog. But then, again, when he
came to speak of his daughter, the repugnance which the conduct of the
demoniac creature had produced in his mind, was but ill-disguised under a
show of profound indifference as to Lucy’s fate. One almost felt as if
he would have been as content to put her out of existence, as he would
have been to destroy some disgusting reptile that had invaded his chamber
or his couch.
The great Fitzgerald property was Lucy’s; and that was all—was nothing.
My uncle and I sat in the gloom of a London November evening, in our
house in Ormond Street. I was out of health, and felt as if I were in an
inextricable coil of misery. Lucy and I wrote to each other, but that
was little; and we dared not see each other for dread of the fearful
Third, who had more than once taken her place at our meetings. My uncle
had, on the day I speak of, bidden prayers to be put up on the ensuing
Sabbath in many a church and meeting-house in London, for one grievously
tormented by an evil spirit. He had faith in prayers—I had none; I was
fast losing faith in all things. So we sat, he trying to interest me in
the old talk of other days, I oppressed by one thought—when our old
servant, Anthony, opened the door, and, without speaking, showed in a
very gentlemanly and prepossessing man, who had something remarkable
about his dress, betraying his profession to be that of the Roman
Catholic priesthood. He glanced at my uncle first, then at me. It was
to me he bowed.
“I did not give my name,” said he, “because you would hardly have
recognised it; unless, sir, when, in the north, you heard of Father
Bernard, the chaplain at Stoney Hurst?”
I remembered afterwards that I had heard of him, but at the time I had
utterly forgotten it; so I professed myself a complete stranger to him;
while my ever-hospitable uncle, although hating a papist as much as it
was in his nature to hate anything, placed a chair for the visitor, and
bade Anthony bring glasses, and a fresh jug of claret.
Father Bernard received this courtesy with the graceful ease and pleasant
acknowledgement which belongs to a man of the world. Then he turned to
scan me with his keen glance. After some alight conversation, entered
into on his part, I am certain, with an intention of discovering on what
terms of confidence I stood with my uncle, he paused, and said gravely—
“I am sent here with a message to you, sir, from a woman to whom you have
shown kindness, and who is one of my penitents, in Antwerp—one Bridget
Fitzgerald.”
“Bridget Fitzgerald!” exclaimed I. “In Antwerp? Tell me, sir, all that
you can about her.”
“There is much to be said,” he replied. “But may I inquire if this
gentleman—if your uncle is acquainted with the particulars of which you
and I stand informed?”
“All that I know, he knows,” said I, eagerly laying my hand on my uncle’s
arm, as he made a motion as if to quit the room.
“Then I have to speak before two gentlemen who, however they may differ
from me in faith, are yet fully impressed with the fact that there are
evil powers going about continually to take cognizance of our evil
thoughts: and, if their Master gives them power, to bring them into overt
action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin, which I dare not
disbelieve—as some sceptics would have us do—the sin of witchcraft. Of
this deadly sin, you and I are aware, Bridget Fitzgerald has been guilty.
Since you saw her last, many prayers have been offered in our churches,
many masses sung, many penances undergone, in order that, if God and the
holy saints so willed it, her sin might be blotted out. But it has not
been so willed.”
“Explain to me,” said I, “who you are, and how you come connected with
Bridget. Why is she at Antwerp? I pray you, sir, tell me more. If I am
impatient, excuse me; I am ill and feverish, and in consequence
bewildered.”
There was something to me inexpressibly soothing in the tone of voice
with which he began to narrate, as it were from the beginning, his
acquaintance with Bridget.
“I had known Mr. and Mrs. Starkey during their residence abroad, and so
it fell out naturally that, when I came as chaplain to the Sherburnes at
Stoney Hurst, our acquaintance was renewed; and thus I became the
confessor of the whole family, isolated as they were from the offices of
the Church, Sherburne being their nearest neighbour who professed the
true faith. Of course, you are aware that facts revealed in confession
are sealed as in the grave; but I learnt enough of Bridget’s character to
be convinced that I had to do with no common woman; one powerful for good
as for evil. I believe that I was able to give her spiritual assistance
from time to time, and that she looked upon me as a servant of that Holy
Church, which has such wonderful power of moving men’s hearts, and
relieving them of the burden of their sins. I have known her cross the
moors on the wildest nights of storm, to confess and be absolved; and
then she would return, calmed and subdued, to her daily work about her
mistress, no one witting where she had been during the hours that most
passed in sleep upon their beds. After her daughter’s departure—after
Mary’s mysterious disappearance—I had to impose many a long penance, in
order to wash away the sin of impatient repining that was fast leading
her into the deeper guilt of blasphemy. She set out on that long journey
of which you have possibly heard—that fruitless journey in search of
Mary—and during her absence, my superiors ordered my return to my former
duties at Antwerp, and for many years I heard no more of Bridget.
“Not many months ago, as I was passing homewards in the evening, along
one of the streets near St. Jacques, leading into the Meer Straet, I saw
a woman sitting crouched up under the shrine of the Holy Mother of
Sorrows. Her hood was drawn over her head, so that the shadow caused by
the light of the lamp above fell deep over her face; her hands were
clasped round her knees. It was evident that she was some one in
hopeless trouble, and as such it was my duty to stop and speak. I
naturally addressed her first in Flemish, believing her to be one of the
lower class of inhabitants. She shook her head, but did not look up.
Then I tried French, and she replied in that language, but speaking it so
indifferently, that I was sure she was either English or Irish, and
consequently spoke to her in my own native tongue. She recognized my
voice; and, starting up, caught at my robes, dragging me before the
blessed shrine, and throwing herself down, and forcing me, as much by her
evident desire as by her action, to kneel beside her, she exclaimed:
“‘O Holy Virgin! you will never hearken to me again, but hear him; for
you know him of old, that he does your bidding, and strives to heal
broken hearts. Hear him!’
“She turned to me.
“‘She will hear you, if you will only pray. She never hears _me_: she
and all the saints in heaven cannot hear my prayers, for the Evil One
carries them off, as he carried that first away. O, Father Bernard, pray
for me!’
“I prayed for one in sore distress, of what nature I could not say; but
the Holy Virgin would know. Bridget held me fast, gasping with eagerness
at the sound of my words. When I had ended, I rose, and, making the sign
of the Cross over her, I was going to bless her in the name of the Holy
Church, when she shrank away like some terrified creature, and said—
“‘I am guilty of deadly sin, and am not shriven.’
“‘Arise, my daughter,’ said I, ‘and come with me.’ And I led the way
into one of the confessionals of St. Jaques.
“She knelt; I listened. No words came. The evil powers had stricken her
dumb, as I heard afterwards they had many a time before, when she
approached confession.
“She was too poor to pay for the necessary forms of exorcism; and
hitherto those priests to whom she had addressed herself were either so
ignorant of the meaning of her broken French, or her Irish-English, or
else esteemed her to be one crazed—as, indeed, her wild and excited
manner might easily have led any one to think—that they had neglected the
sole means of loosening her tongue, so that she might confess her deadly
sin, and, after due penance, obtain absolution. But I knew Bridget of
old, and felt that she was a penitent sent to me. I went through those
holy offices appointed by our Church for the relief of such a case. I
was the more bound to do this, as I found that she had come to Antwerp
for the sole purpose of discovering me, and making confession to me. Of
the nature of that fearful confession I am forbidden to speak. Much of
it you know; possibly all.
“It now remains for her to free herself from mortal guilt, and to set
others free from the consequences thereof. No prayers, no masses, will
ever do it, although they may strengthen her with that strength by which
alone acts of deepest love and purest self-devotion may be performed.
Her words of passion, and cries for revenge—her unholy prayers could
never reach the ears of the holy saints! Other powers intercepted them,
and wrought so that the curses thrown up to heaven have fallen on her own
flesh and blood; and so, through her very strength of love, have brused
and crushed her heart. Henceforward her former self must be buried,—yea,
buried quick, if need be,—but never more to make sign, or utter cry on
earth! She has become a Poor Clare, in order that, by perpetual penance
and constant service of others, she may at length so act as to obtain
final absolution and rest for her soul. Until then, the innocent must
suffer. It is to plead for the innocent that I come to you; not in the
name of the witch, Bridget Fitzgerald, but of the penitent and servant of
all men, the Poor Clare, Sister Magdalen.”
“Sir,” said I, “I listen to your request with respect; only I may tell
you it is not needed to urge me to do all that I can on behalf of one,
love for whom is part of my very life. If for a time I have absented
myself from her, it is to think and work for her redemption. I, a member
of the English Church—my uncle, a Puritan—pray morning and night for her
by name: the congregations of London, on the next Sabbath, will pray for
one unknown, that she may be set free from the Powers of Darkness.
Moreover, I must tell you, sir, that those evil ones touch not the great
calm of her soul. She lives her own pure and loving life, unharmed and
untainted, though all men fall off from her. I would I could have her
faith!”
My uncle now spoke.
“Nephew,” said he, “it seems to me that this gentleman, although
professing what I consider an erroneous creed, has touched upon the right
point in exhorting Bridget to acts of love and mercy, whereby to wipe out
her sin of hate and vengeance. Let us strive after our fashion, by
almsgiving and visiting of the needy and fatherless, to make our prayers
acceptable. Meanwhile, I myself will go down into the north, and take
charge of the maiden. I am too old to be daunted by man or demon. I
will bring her to this house as to a home; and let the Double come if it
will! A company of godly divines shall give it the meeting, and we will
try issue.”
The kindly, brave old man! But Father Bernard sat on musing.
“All hate,” said he, “cannot be quenched in her heart; all Christian
forgiveness cannot have entered into her soul, or the demon would have
lost its power. You said, I think, that her grandchild was still
tormented?”
“Still tormented!” I replied, sadly, thinking of Mistress Clarke’s last
letter.
He rose to go. We afterwards heard that the occasion of his
coming to London was a secret political mission on behalf of the
Jacobites. Nevertheless, he was a good and a wise man.
Months and months passed away without any change. Lucy entreated my
uncle to leave her where she was,—dreading, as I learnt, lest if she
came, with her fearful companion, to dwell in the same house with me,
that my love could not stand the repeated shocks to which I should be
doomed. And this she thought from no distrust of the strength of my
affection, but from a kind of pitying sympathy for the terror to the
nerves which she clearly observed that the demoniac visitation caused in
all.
I was restless and miserable. I devoted myself to good works; but I
performed them from no spirit of love, but solely from the hope of reward
and payment, and so the reward was never granted. At length, I asked my
uncle’s leave to travel; and I went forth, a wanderer, with no distincter
end than that of many another wanderer—to get away from myself. A
strange impulse led me to Antwerp, in spite of the wars and commotions
then raging in the Low Countries—or rather, perhaps, the very craving to
become interested in something external, led me into the thick of the
struggle then going on with the Austrians. The cities of Flanders were
all full at that time of civil disturbances and rebellions, only kept
down by force, and the presence of an Austrian garrison in every place.
I arrived in Antwerp, and made inquiry for Father Bernard. He was away
in the country for a day or two. Then I asked my way to the Convent of
Poor Clares; but, being healthy and prosperous, I could only see the dim,
pent-up, gray walls, shut closely in by narrow streets, in the lowest
part of the town. My landlord told me, that had I been stricken by some
loathsome disease, or in desperate case of any kind, the Poor Clares
would have taken me, and tended me. He spoke of them as an order of
mercy of the strictest kind, dressing scantily in the coarsest materials,
going barefoot, living on what the inhabitants of Antwerp chose to
bestow, and sharing even those fragments and crumbs with the poor and
helpless that swarmed all around; receiving no letters or communication
with the outer world; utterly dead to everything but the alleviation of
suffering. He smiled at my inquiring whether I could get speech of one
of them; and told me that they were even forbidden to speak for the
purposes of begging their daily food; while yet they lived, and fed
others upon what was given in charity.
“But,” exclaimed I, “supposing all men forgot them! Would they quietly
lie down and die, without making sign of their extremity?”
“If such were the rule the Poor Clares would willingly do it; but their
founder appointed a remedy for such extreme cases as you suggest. They
have a bell—’tis but a small one, as I have heard, and has yet never been
rung in the memory of man: when the Poor Clares have been without food
for twenty-four hours, they may ring this bell, and then trust to our
good people of Antwerp for rushing to the rescue of the Poor Clares, who
have taken such blessed care of us in all our straits.”
It seemed to me that such rescue would be late in the day; but I did not
say what I thought. I rather turned the conversation, by asking my
landlord if he knew, or had ever heard, anything of a certain Sister
Magdalen.
“Yes,” said he, rather under his breath, “news will creep out, even from
a convent of Poor Clares. Sister Magdalen is either a great sinner or a
great saint. She does more, as I have heard, than all the other nuns put
together; yet, when last month they would fain have made her
mother-superior, she begged rather that they would place her below all
the rest, and make her the meanest servant of all.”
“You never saw her?” asked I.
“Never,” he replied.
I was weary of waiting for Father Bernard, and yet I lingered in Antwerp.
The political state of things became worse than ever, increased to its
height by the scarcity of food consequent on many deficient harvests. I
saw groups of fierce, squalid men, at every corner of the street, glaring
out with wolfish eyes at my sleek skin and handsome clothes.
At last Father Bernard returned. We had a long conversation, in which he
told me that, curiously enough, Mr. Gisborne, Lucy’s father, was serving
in one of the Austrian regiments, then in garrison at Antwerp. I asked
Father Bernard if he would make us acquainted; which he consented to do.
But, a day or two afterwards, he told me that, on hearing my name, Mr.
Gisborne had declined responding to any advances on my part, saying he
had adjured his country, and hated his countrymen.
Probably he recollected my name in connection with that of his daughter
Lucy. Anyhow, it was clear enough that I had no chance of making his
acquaintance. Father Bernard confirmed me in my suspicions of the hidden
fermentation, for some coming evil, working among the “blouses” of
Antwerp, and he would fain have had me depart from out the city; but I
rather craved the excitement of danger, and stubbornly refused to leave.
One day, when I was walking with him in the Place Verte, he bowed to an
Austrian officer, who was crossing towards the cathedral.
“That is Mr. Gisborne,” said he, as soon as the gentleman was past.
I turned to look at the tall, slight figure of the officer. He carried
himself in a stately manner, although he was past middle age, and from
his years might have had some excuse for a slight stoop. As I looked at
the man, he turned round, his eyes met mine, and I saw his face. Deeply
lined, sallow, and scathed was that countenance; scarred by passion as
well as by the fortunes of war. ’Twas but a moment our eyes met. We
each turned round, and went on our separate way.
But his whole appearance was not one to be easily forgotten; the thorough
appointment of the dress, and evident thought bestowed on it, made but an
incongruous whole with the dark, gloomy expression of his countenance.
Because he was Lucy’s father, I sought instinctively to meet him
everywhere. At last he must have become aware of my pertinacity, for he
gave me a haughty scowl whenever I passed him. In one of these
encounters, however, I chanced to be of some service to him. He was
turning the corner of a street, and came suddenly on one of the groups of
discontented Flemings of whom I have spoken. Some words were exchanged,
when my gentleman out with his sword, and with a slight but skilful cut
drew blood from one of those who had insulted him, as he fancied, though
I was too far off to hear the words. They would all have fallen upon him
had I not rushed forwards and raised the cry, then well known in Antwerp,
of rally, to the Austrian soldiers who were perpetually patrolling the
streets, and who came in numbers to the rescue. I think that neither Mr.
Gisborne nor the mutinous group of plebeians owed me much gratitude for
my interference. He had planted himself against a wall, in a skilful
attitude of fence, ready with his bright glancing rapier to do battle
with all the heavy, fierce, unarmed men, some six or seven in number.
But when his own soldiers came up, he sheathed his sword; and, giving
some careless word of command, sent them away again, and continued his
saunter all alone down the street, the workmen snarling in his rear, and
more than half-inclined to fall on me for my cry for rescue. I cared not
if they did, my life seemed so dreary a burden just then; and, perhaps,
it was this daring loitering among them that prevented their attacking
me. Instead, they suffered me to fall into conversation with them; and I
heard some of their grievances. Sore and heavy to be borne were they,
and no wonder the sufferers were savage and desperate.
The man whom Gisborne had wounded across his face would fain have got out
of me the name of his aggressor, but I refused to tell it. Another of
the group heard his inquiry, and made answer—“I know the man. He is one
Gisborne, aide-de-camp to the General-Commandant. I know him well.”
He began to tell some story in connection with Gisborne in a low and
muttering voice; and while he was relating a tale, which I saw excited
their evil blood, and which they evidently wished me not to hear, I
sauntered away and back to my lodgings.
That night Antwerp was in open revolt. The inhabitants rose in rebellion
against their Austrian masters. The Austrians, holding the gates of the
city, remained at first pretty quiet in the citadel; only, from time to
time, the boom of the great cannon swept sullenly over the town. But if
they expected the disturbance to die away, and spend itself in a few
hours’ fury, they were mistaken. In a day or two, the rioters held
possession of the principal municipal buildings. Then the Austrians
poured forth in bright flaming array, calm and smiling, as they marched
to the posts assigned, as if the fierce mob were no more to them then the
swarms of buzzing summer flies. Their practised manœuvres, their
well-aimed shot, told with terrible effect; but in the place of one slain
rioter, three sprang up of his blood to avenge his loss. But a deadly
foe, a ghastly ally of the Austrians, was at work. Food, scarce and dear
for months, was now hardly to be obtained at any price. Desperate
efforts were being made to bring provisions into the city, for the
rioters had friends without. Close to the city port, nearest to the
Scheldt, a great struggle took place. I was there, helping the rioters,
whose cause I had adopted. We had a savage encounter with the Austrians.
Numbers fell on both sides: I saw them lie bleeding for a moment: then a
volley of smoke obscured them; and when it cleared away, they were
dead—trampled upon or smothered, pressed down and hidden by the
freshly-wounded whom those last guns had brought low. And then a
gray-robed and grey-veiled figure came right across the flashing guns and
stooped over some one, whose life-blood was ebbing away; sometimes it was
to give him drink from cans which they carried slung at their sides;
sometimes I saw the cross held above a dying man, and rapid prayers were
being uttered, unheard by men in that hellish din and clangour, but
listened to by One above. I saw all this as in a dream: the reality of
that stern time was battle and carnage. But I knew that these gray
figures, their bare feet all wet with blood, and their faces hidden by
their veils, were the Poor Clares—sent forth now because dire agony was
abroad and imminent danger at hand. Therefore, they left their
cloistered shelter, and came into that thick and evil mêlée.
Close to me—driven past me by the struggle of many fighters—came the
Antwerp burgess with the scarce-healed scar upon his face; and in an
instant more, he was thrown by the press upon the Austrian officer
Gisborne, and ere either had recovered the shock, the burgess had
recognized his opponent.
“Ha! the Englishman Gisborne!” he cried, and threw himself upon him with
redoubled fury. He had struck him hard—the Englishman was down; when out
of the smoke came a dark-gray figure, and threw herself right under the
uplifted flashing sword. The burgess’s arm stood arrested. Neither
Austrians nor Anversois willingly harmed the Poor Clares.
“Leave him to me!” said a low stern voice. “He is mine enemy—mine for
many years.”
Those words were the last I heard. I myself was struck down by a bullet.
I remember nothing more for days. When I came to myself, I was at the
extremity of weakness, and was craving for food to recruit my strength.
My landlord sat watching me. He, too, looked pinched and shrunken; he
had heard of my wounded state, and sought me out. Yes! the struggle
still continued, but the famine was sore: and some, he had heard, had
died for lack of food. The tears stood in his eyes as he spoke. But
soon he shook off his weakness, and his natural cheerfulness returned.
Father Bernard had been to see me—no one else. (Who should, indeed?)
Father Bernard would come back that afternoon—he had promised. But
Father Bernard never came, although I was up and dressed, and looking
eagerly for him.
My landlord brought me a meal which he had cooked himself: of what it was
composed he would not say, but it was most excellent, and with every
mouthful I seemed to gain strength. The good man sat looking at my
evident enjoyment with a happy smile of sympathy; but, as my appetite
became satisfied, I began to detect a certain wistfulness in his eyes, as
if craving for the food I had so nearly devoured—for, indeed, at that
time I was hardly aware of the extent of the famine. Suddenly, there was
a sound of many rushing feet past our window. My landlord opened one of
the sides of it, the better to learn what was going on. Then we heard a
faint, cracked, tinkling bell, coming shrill upon the air, clear and
distinct from all other sounds. “Holy Mother!” exclaimed my landlord,
“the Poor Clares!”
He snatched up the fragments of my meal, and crammed them into my hands,
bidding me follow. Down stairs he ran, clutching at more food, as the
women of his house eagerly held it out to him; and in a moment we were in
the street, moving along with the great current, all tending towards the
Convent of the Poor Clares. And still, as if piercing our ears with its
inarticulate cry, came the shrill tinkle of the bell. In that strange
crowd were old men trembling and sobbing, as they carried their little
pittance of food; women with tears running down their cheeks, who had
snatched up what provisions they had in the vessels in which they stood,
so that the burden of these was in many cases much greater than that
which they contained; children, with flushed faces, grasping tight the
morsel of bitten cake or bread, in their eagerness to carry it safe to
the help of the Poor Clares; strong men—yea, both Anversois and
Austrians—pressing onward with set teeth, and no word spoken; and over
all, and through all, came that sharp tinkle—that cry for help in
extremity.
We met the first torrent of people returning with blanched and piteous
faces: they were issuing out of the convent to make way for the offerings
of others. “Haste, haste!” said they. “A Poor Clare is dying! A Poor
Clare is dead for hunger! God forgive us and our city!”
We pressed on. The stream bore us along where it would. We were carried
through refectories, bare and crumbless; into cells over whose doors the
conventual name of the occupant was written. Thus it was that I, with
others, was forced into Sister Magdalen’s cell. On her couch lay
Gisborne, pale unto death, but not dead. By his side was a cup of water,
and a small morsel of mouldy bread, which he had pushed out of his reach,
and could not move to obtain. Over against his bed were these words,
copied in the English version “Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed
him; if he thirst, give him drink.”
Some of us gave him of our food, and left him eating greedily, like some
famished wild animal. For now it was no longer the sharp tinkle, but
that one solemn toll, which in all Christian countries tells of the
passing of the spirit out of earthly life into eternity; and again a
murmur gathered and grew, as of many people speaking with awed breath, “A
Poor Clare is dying! a Poor Clare is dead!”
Borne along once more by the motion of the crowd, we were carried into
the chapel belonging to the Poor Clares. On a bier before the high
altar, lay a woman—lay Sister Magdalen—lay Bridget Fitzgerald. By her
side stood Father Bernard, in his robes of office, and holding the
crucifix on high while he pronounced the solemn absolution of the Church,
as to one who had newly confessed herself of deadly sin. I pushed on
with passionate force, till I stood close to the dying woman, as she
received extreme unction amid the breathless and awed hush of the
multitude around. Her eyes were glazing, her limbs were stiffening; but
when the rite was over and finished, she raised her gaunt figure slowly
up, and her eyes brightened to a strange intensity of joy, as, with the
gesture of her finger and the trance-like gleam of her eye, she seemed
like one who watched the disappearance of some loathed and fearful
creature.
“She is freed from the curse!” said she, as she fell back dead.