"No, mother--no, no! Not dying! Very ill, very weak, very low, but not dying. Oh, not dying!"
"Dying, my daughter!" the sick woman said. "I count my life by minutes now; I heard the city clocks strike eleven; I counted the strokes, for, my Sunbeam, it is the last hour thy mother will ever hear on earth."
The ballet-dancer covered her face, with a low, despairing cry. The dying mother, with a painful effort, lifted her own skeleton hand and removed those of the girl.
"Weep not, but listen, carissima. I have much to say to thee before I go; I feared to die before you came; and even in my grave I could not rest with the words I must say unsaid. I have a legacy to leave thee, my daughter."
"A legacy?"
The girl opened her great black eyes in wide surprise.
"Even so. Not of lands, or houses, or gold, or honors, but something a thousand-fold greater--an inheritance of hatred and revenge!"
"My mother!"
"Listen to me, my daughter, and my dying malediction be upon thee if thou fulfillest not the trust. Thou hast heard the name of Kingsland?"
"Ay, often; from my father ere he died--from thee, since. Was it not his last command to me--this hatred of their evil race? Did I not promise him on his death-bed, four years ago? Does my mother think I forget?"
"That is my brave daughter. You know the cruel story of treachery and wrong done thy grandmother, Zenith--you know the prediction your father made to my father, Sir Jasper Kingsland, on the night of his son's birth. Be it thine, my brave daughter, to see that prediction fulfilled."
"You ask a terrible thing, my mother," she said, slowly; but I can refuse you nothing, and I abhor them all. I promise--the prediction shall be fulfilled!"
"My own! my own! That son is a boy of twelve now--be it yours to find him, and work the retribution of the gods. Your grandmother, your father, your mother, look to you from their graves for vengeance. Woe to you if you fail!"
"I shall not fail!" the girl said, solemnly. "I can die, but I can not break a promise. Vengeance shall fall, fierce and terrible, upon the heir of Kingsland, and mine shall be the hand to inflict it. I swear it by your death-bed, mother, and I will keep my oath!"
The mother pressed her hand. The film of death was in her eyes. She strove to speak; there was a quick, dreadful convulsion, then an awful calm.
Within the same hour, with miles between them, Sir Jasper Kingsland and Zara, his outcast daughter, died.