This knowledge and the help she had given was the real curse upon her now:  a curse far more horrible and deadly than that which had driven Cain forth into the wilderness.  This knowledge and the help she had given had stained her hands with the blood of her own child.

No wonder that she sighed for ghouls and for shadowy monsters, well-nigh longing for a sight of distorted faces, of ugly deformed bodies, and loathsome shapes far less hideous than that specter of an inhuman homicide which followed her along this dark road as she ran—­ran on—­ran towards the home where dwelt the living monster of evil, the man who had done the deed, which she had helped to accomplish.

Complete darkness reigned all around her, she could not see a yard of the road in front of her, but she went on blindly, guided by instinct, led by that unseen shadow which was driving her on.  All round her the gale was moaning in the creaking branches of the trees, branches which were like arms stretched forth in appeal towards the unattainable.

Her progress was slow for she was walking in the very teeth of the hurricane, and her shoes ever and anon remained glued to the slimy mud.  But the road was straight enough, she knew it well, and she felt neither fatigue nor discomfort.

Of Sue she did not think.  The wrongs done to the defenseless girl were as nothing to her compared with the irreparable—­the wrongs done to her sons, the living and the dead:  for the one the foul dagger of an inhuman assassin, for the other shame and disgrace.

Sue was young.  Sue would soon forget.  The girl-wife would soon regain her freedom....  But what of the mother who had on her soul the taint of the murder of her child?

The gate leading to the Court from the road was wide open:  it had been left so for her, no doubt, when Sir Marmaduke returned.  The house itself was dark, no light save one pierced the interstices of the ill-fitting shutters.  Editha paused a moment at the gate, looking at the house—­a great black mass, blacker than the surrounding gloom.  That had been her home for many years now, ever since her youth and sprightliness had vanished, and she had had nowhere to go for shelter.  It had been her home ever since Richard, her youngest boy, had entered it, too, as a dependent.

Oh! what an immeasurable fool she had been, how she had been tricked and fooled all these years by the man who two days ago had put a crown upon his own infamy.  He knew where the boys were, he helped to keep them away from their mother, so as to filch from them their present, and above all, future inheritance.  How she loathed him now, and loathed herself for having allowed him to drag her down.  Aye! of a truth he had wronged her worse even than he had wronged his brother’s sons!

She fixed her eyes steadily on the one light which alone pierced the inky blackness of the solid mass of the house.  It came from the little withdrawing-room, which was on the left of this entrance to the hall; but the place itself—­beyond just that one tiny light—­appeared quite silent and deserted.  Even from the stableyard on her right and from the serving-men’s quarters not a sound came to mingle with the weird whisperings of the wind.