He endeavored to prevail upon the
clergyman also to deny the marriage, which he refused to do, whereupon
he was found murdered. His wife by this marriage having learned from
Essex that Hamilton had most treacherously deceived her, fell into
premature labor and died; but her last words were an awful curse upon
him, and his children after him, to the last generation.
"'May the Eye that lured me to destruction,' she said, 'become a curse
to you and your descendants forever! May it blight and kill all those
whom it looks upon, and render it dreadful and dreaded to all those who
will place confidence in you or your descendants!'"
"God knows I couldn't much blame her; it was her last Christian
benediction to the villain who had destroyed her, and, setting-charity
aside, I don't see how she could have spoken otherwise.
"When the proofs of the marriage, however, were about to be brought
against him, the Protestant clergyman, who, on discovering his iniquity,
was too honest to conceal it, and who felt bitterly the fraud that had
been practised on him, was found murdered, as I have said, because he
was now the only evidence left against Hamilton's crime.
Pages:
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633