with a ruined woman's curse, and hot and scathing may it burn on your
head and on the heads of your children's children!"

The last horrible words aroused the listeners from their petrified
trance. The Reverend Cyrus Green lifted up his voice in a tone of
command:

"This woman is mad! She is a furious lunatic! Dawson! Humphreys!
come here and secure her!"

"The child! the child!" she cried, with a screech of demoniac delight;
"the spawn of the viper is within my grasp!"

One plunge forward and the infant heir was in her arms, held high
aloft. One second later, and its blood and brains would have
bespattered the stone floor, but Mr. Carlyon sprung forward and
wrenched it from her grasp.

The two men summoned by the clergyman closed upon her and held her
fast; her frantic shrieks rang to the roof. Then suddenly, all ceased,
and, foaming and livid, she fell between them in a fit.




CHAPTER V.

ZENITH'S MALEDICTION.

A dead pause of blank consternation; the faces around a sight to see;