"
"Do not believe that--you would be too much elated with the triumph of your
ambition; for, if your daughter had lived, the prince would have married
you--he told you so."
"In admitting this mad supposition, it seems to me that I should not have a
right to live. After having received the hand of the prince, my duty would
be to deliver him of an unworthy wife--my daughter of an unnatural mother."
The embarrassment of Thomas Seyton increased every moment. Charged by
Rudolph, who was in an adjoining room, to inform Sarah that Fleur-de-Marie
was alive, he did not know how to accomplish it. The state of the countess
was so critical that she might expire from one moment to another; there
was, then, no time to be lost in celebrating the marriage _in extremis_
which was to legitimate the birth of Fleur-de-Marie. For this sad ceremony,
the prince had brought with him a clergyman, with Murphy and Baron de Graun
as witnesses; the Duke de Lucenay and Lord Douglas, notified in haste by
Seyton, were to serve as witnesses for the countess, and had just arrived.
Time was pressing; but remorse, feelings of maternal tenderness, which
replaced, in Sarah's heart, her merciless ambition, rendered the task of
Seyton still more difficult. All his hope was that his sister deceived him
or deceived herself, and that her pride would be awakened, as soon as she
had gained this crown, so long and ambitiously coveted.
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