In the agony of my suspense I yet observed her smallest movement.
'And in what capacity am I to undertake this expedition?' said she at
length, in the same quiet tone, that soul-quelling tone she always
adopted when her passion was at white-heat. 'Is it in the capacity of
your father's wife executing his wishes about the amulet? Or is it as
the friend, protectress, and guardian of Miss Wynne?'
She sat down again by my bedside, and communed with
herself--sometimes fixing an abstracted gaze upon me, sometimes
looking across me at the very spot where in the shadow beside my bed
I bad seemed to see the words of the Psalmist's curse written in
letters of fire. At last she said quietly, 'Henry, I will undertake
this commission of yours.'
'Dear mother!' I exclaimed in my delight. 'I will undertake it,'
pursued my mother in the same quiet tone, 'on one condition.'
'Any condition in the world, mother. There is nothing I will not do,
nothing I will not sacrifice or suffer, if you will only aid me in
saving this poor girl. Name your condition, mother; you can name
nothing I will not comply with.
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