“Yes, or her ghost,” cried the other, shuddering under a horror that left him little control of his reason.
“Then your boy is lost,” murmured Mr. Sylvester, with a vivid remembrance of the words he had overheard. “She will never save her rival’s child, never.”
The man looked at him with dazed eyes. “She shall save him,” he cried, and stretching far out of the window by which he stood, he pointed to the bridge and called out, “Drop him, Jacqueline, don’t let him burn. He can still reach the next house if he runs. Save my darling, save him.”
But the woman as if waiting for his voice, only threw back her head, and while a bursting flame flashed up behind her, shrieked mockingly back:
“Oh I have frightened you up at last, have I? You can see me now, can you? You can call on Jacqueline now? The brat can make you speak, can he? Well, well, call away, I love to hear your voice. It is music to me even in the face of death.”
“My boy! my boy,” was all he could gasp; “save the child, Jacqueline, only save the child!”
But the harsh scornful laugh she returned, spoke little of saving. “He is so dear,” she hissed. “I love the offspring of my rival so much! the child that has taken the place of my own darling, dead before ever I had seen its innocent eyes. Oh yes, yes, I will save it, save it as my own was saved. When I saw the puny infant in your arms the day you passed me with her , I swore to be its friend, don’t you remember! And I am so much of a one that I stick by him to the death, don’t you see?” And raising him up in her arms till his whole stunted body was visible, she turned away her brow and seemed to laugh in the face of the flames.