'Wynne's
corpse might have been washed up by the tide, and your compact was to
be there to see; but now, most likely, it is hidden, not under the
loose fragments as I had feared, but under the great mass of
earth,--hidden for ever.'
'But you forget,' said my mother, 'that the amulet has to be
recovered.'
'Mother,' I said, in the state of wild suspiciousness concerning her
and her motives into which I had now passed, 'I know what your words
imply,--that Winifred is not yet out of danger; the evidence of the
curse and the crime can be dug up.'
'I have no wish to harm the girl, Henry. You mistake me.'
'Then, mother, we must _not_ mistake each other in this matter,' I
said. 'You have alluded to the word of an Aylwin. With me, as with
the best of us, the word of an Aylwin is an oath. Wynne's corpse is
now hidden; the cross is now hidden; I give you the word of an Aylwin
that the man who digs up that corpse I will kill. I will not consider
that he is an irresponsible agent of yours; I will kill him, and his
blood shall be upon the head of her who sends him, knowing, to his
death.
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