"Gadzooks! likely enough; for I do not expect to die in bed," replied Clermistonlee, calmly, yet nevertheless exasperated by her reply, as he knew from old experience the value of her prophecies. "But I trifle. I know, good Beatrix, you can be faithful, and will serve me as of old. Here is my hand--shall I be fortunate in love?"
"How often these twenty years hath that question been asked of me; and where now are those anent whom ye asked it? Fortunate? I doubt not ye will be more so than she whose portrait is there;" and suddenly withdrawing a veil from a panel, she displayed the portrait of a pale young lady, in a rich dress and high ruff. Her features were soft and beautiful; her hair fair and in great profusion; and her parted lips appeared to smile with inexpressible sweetness. Clermistonlee turned pale, and averted his face, for the portrait seemed full of life and expression.
"Cover it!" said he, in a husky voice; "Cover it!--dost hear me? or must I blow the panel to pieces with my pistols, that these upbraiding eyes may look on me no more?"
"Wretch--ye dare not!" said Beatrix, scornfully, while gazing with something like pity on the fair face the pencil of Vandyke had traced in other times. "Yes, Lady Alison, I hated thee in life, but in death I can respect thee. Oh! Randal, she shared thy wedded love; but was it more fortunate than mine? It was--it was; for she is at rest in her grave, while I still linger here."
"Pity you are not there too! Enough! I am tired of these eternal complaints; and were ye fair as Venus----but look to my hand--what say its lines to-night?"
In her long, lean, and wrinkled fingers she took his ungloved hand, and he half withdrew it, with ill-concealed disgust.
"Ha!" screamed Beatrix, in a terrible voice; "you shrink from my touch now! Oh! Randal, Randal!" she added, in a tone of intense bitterness, "to kiss these faded hands was once a boon of love to thee. Oh! Randal Clermont, have you so quite forgotten these days as to feel no pity for the being you once loved so well?"
"How different was I then from what I am now!" she exclaimed, pressing her hands upon her breast, as if it would burst.
"Yes, base and ungrateful! the hand that now ye loathe was then white as the new fallen snow, and these grey locks were like the dewy wing of the raven. My eyes could then look love to thine, that flashed with the youth, the joy, and the brightness of twenty summers. Who that saw us then, would dream that we are the same? I am no longer young, no longer lovely, and thou--art still a man."