"O, Miss Alice!" she exclaimed, "have you heard what has happened? O,
the false fend treacherous villain! Who would believe it? To lave
a beautiful lady like you, and take up with sich a vulgar vagabone!
However, he has suffered for it. _Shawn-na-Middogue_ did for him."
"What do you mean, Sarah?" said her mistress, much alarmed by such a
startling-preface; "explain yourself. I do not understand, you."
"But you soon will, miss. Shawn-na-Middogue found Mr. Charles Lindsay
and Grace Davoren together last night, and has stabbed him to death;
life's only in him; and that's the gentleman that pretended to love you.
Devil's cure to the villain!"
She paused. The expression of her mistress's face was awful. A pallor
more frightful than that of death, because it was associated with life,
overspread her countenance. Her eyes became dim and dull; her features
in a moment were collapsed, and resembled those of some individual
struck by paralysis--they were altogether without meaning. She clasped
and unclasped her hands, like one under the influence of strong
hysterical agony; she laid herself back in bed, where she had been
sitting up expecting her coffee, her eyes closed, for she had not
physical strength even to keep them open, and with considerable
difficulty she said, in a low and scarcely audible voice,--"My mother!"
Poor Sarah felt and saw the mischief she had done, and, with streaming
eyes and loud sobbings, lost not a moment in summoning Mrs.
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