death stealing slowly over her
wide-opened eyes; and yet, dimming as they were, they saw in the sleeping
infant a strange and troublous thing--though it was but a few hours old
'twas not as red and crumple visaged as new-born infants usually are, its
little head was covered with thick black silk, and its small features
were of singular definiteness. She dragged herself nearer to gaze.

"She looks not like the others," she said. "They had no beauty--and are
safe. She--she will be like--Jeoffry--and like _me_."

The dying fire fell lower with a shuddering sound.

"If she is--beautiful, and has but her father, and no mother!" she
whispered, the words dragged forth slowly, "only evil can come to her.
From her first hour--she will know naught else, poor heart, poor heart!"

There was a rattling in her throat as she breathed, but in her glazing
eyes a gleam like passion leaped, and gasping, she dragged nearer.

"'Tis not fair," she cried. "If I--if I could lay my hand upon thy
mouth--and stop thy breathing--thou poor thing, 'twould be fairer--but--I
have no strength."

She gathered all her dying will and brought her hand up to the infant's
mouth. A wild look was on her poor, small face, she panted and fell
forward on its breast, the rattle in her throat growing louder. The
child awakened, opening great black eyes, and with her dying weakness its
new-born life struggled. Her cold hand lay upon I its mouth, and her
head upon its body, for she was too far gone to move if she had willed to
do so. But the tiny creature's strength was marvellous. It gasped, it
fought, its little limbs struggled beneath her, it writhed until the cold
hand fell away, and then, its baby mouth set free, it fell a-shrieking.
Its cries were not like those of a new-born thing, but fierce and shrill,
and even held the sound of infant passion. 'Twas not a thing to let its
life go easily, 'twas of those born to do battle.

Its lusty screaming pierced her ear perhaps--she drew a long, slow
breath, and then another, and another still--the last one trembled and
stopped short, and the last cinder fell dead from the fire.

* * * * *

When the nurse came bustling and fretting back, the chamber was cold as
the grave's self--there were only dead embers on the hearth, the new-born
child's cries filled all the desolate air, and my lady was lying stone
dead, her poor head resting on her offspring's feet, the while her open
glazed eyes seemed to star