It
had vanished, and he was left to meditate on it as best he might.
We now pass to the haunted cottage itself. There lay Grace Davoren,
after having given birth to a child; there she lay--the victim of the
seducer, on the very eve of dissolution, and beside her, sitting on the
bed, the unfortunate Nannie Morrissy, now a confirmed and dying maniac.
"Grace," said Nannie, "you, like me, were ruined."
"I was," replied Grace, in a voice scarcely audible.
"Ay, but you didn't murder your father, though, as I did; that's one
advantage I have over you--ha! ha! ha!"
"I'm not so sure of that, Nannie," replied the dying girl; "but where's
my baby?"
"O! yes, you have had a baby, but Caterine Collins took it away with
her."
"My child! my child! where is my child?" she exclaimed in a low, but
husky voice; "where's my child? and besides, ever since I took that
bottle she gave me I feel deadly sick."
"Will I go for your father and mother--but above all things for your
father? But then if he punished the villain that ruined you and brought
disgrace upon your name, he might be hanged as mine was.
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