"He has come to take me away," she said, "and we have talked together.
Gilbert--a dreadful thing has happened; did he tell you?"
"He told me nothing--excepting that I was a coward!" He laughed
scornfully.
"I think he is half mad with sorrow." She paused and laid her hand on
Gilbert's. "His wife is dead,--your mother is dead,--with the child
she bore him."
Gilbert's eyes alone changed, but under her palm Beatrix felt the
sinews of his hand leap and the veins swell.
"Tell me quickly," he said.
"She was burned," continued Beatrix, in a tone of awe. "She made my
father grind his people till they turned, and she made him hang the
leader who spoke for them. Then all the yeomen and the bondmen rose,
and they burned the castle, and your mother died with the child. But my
father escaped alive. Now I am again his only child, and he wants me
again."
Gilbert's head fell forward, as if he had received a blow, but he said
nothing for a time, for he saw his mother's face; and he saw her not as
when they had parted, but as he remembered her before that, when he had
loved her above all things, not knowing what she was. In spite of all
that had gone between, she came back to him as she had been, and the
pain and the pity were real and great. But then he felt Beatrix's hand
pressing his in sympathy, and it brought him again to the evil truth.
He raised his head.
"She is better dead," he said bitterly. "Let us not speak of her any
more. She was my mother.
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