And how he came to his end, I have been
puzzling myself in vain to discover ever since."
She rose up, drew herself to her full majestic height, and looked
at him with a terrible glance
"Shall I tell you?"
"You have had no hand in it," he answered, with a cold chill at
the tone and look, "for he loved you!"
"I have had a hand in it - I alone have been the cause of it.
But for me he would be living still!"
"Madame," exclaimed Sir Norman, in horror.
"You need not look as if you thought me mad, for I tell you it is
Heaven's truth! You say right - he loved me; but for that love
he would be living now!"
"You speak in riddles which I cannot read. How could that love
have caused his death, since his dearest wishes were to be
granted to-night?"
"He told you that, did he?"
"He did. He told me you were to remove your mask; and if, on
seeing you, he still loved you, you were to be his wife."
"Then woe to him for ever having extorted such a promise from me!
Oh, I warned him again, and again, and again. I told him how it
would be - I begged him to desist; but no, he was blind, he was
mad; he would rush on his own doom! I fulfilled my promise, and
behold the result!"
She pointed with a frantic gesture to the plague-pit, and wrung
her beautiful hands with the same moaning of anguish.
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