His grandson looked after him, with an expression of
intense displeasure.
'And so, Lady Maulevrier,' he exclaimed, turning to his grandmother, 'I
have borne a title that never belonged to me, and enjoyed the possession
of another man's estates all this time, thanks to your pretty little
plot. A very respectable position for your grandson to occupy, upon my
life!'
Lord Hartfield lifted his hand with a warning gesture.
'Spare her,' he said. 'She is in no condition to endure your
reproaches.'
Spare her--yes. Fate had not spared her. The beautiful face--beautiful
even in age and decay--changed suddenly as she looked at them--the mouth
became distorted, the eyes fixed: and then the heavy head fell back upon
the pillow--the paralysed form, wholly paralysed now, lay like a thing
of stone. It never moved again. Consciousness was blotted out for ever
in that moment. The feeble pulses of heart and brain throbbed with
gradually diminishing power for a night and a day; and in the twilight
of that dreadful day of nothingness the last glimmer of the light died
in the lamp, and Lady Maulevrier and the burden of her sin were beyond
the veil.
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