human
Besides, you dare not keep her! he said, gathering courage from her silence; fancying, perhaps, it was a sign of relenting.
gpt
The officers of the law would find you out; and a worse fate than your son's would be yours.
human
Find me? she repeated.
gpt
Yes, if they can find last year's snow, last year's partridges, or last summer's rain. Let them find me. Why, if it came to that, I could dash its brains out in one instant, before its very mother's eyes.
human
Oh, worst of fiends! does there linger a human heart in your body?
gpt
No; it turned to stone the night I groveled in vain at your feet.
human
Take any other revenge you like; haunt me, pursue me, as you will, but restore that child! She never injured you; if there is guilt anywhere, it rests on my head. Let me, therefore, suffer, and give back the child.
gpt
You will relent; you are a woman, and not a devil. Consent to what I ask, and if wealth be any object, you shall have the half--the whole of my fortune. Tell me you consent, and all I have in the world, together with my everlasting gratitude, will be yours.
human
You should have thought of this the night you refused to grant my prayer, my lord. Will your wealth and 'every-lasting gratitude' restore my son from the dead?
gpt
God knows, were it in my power, I would willingly give my life to restore him and cancel the past. All that remains for me to do I will do, if you restore the child.
human
Lord earl, when I knelt to you, you commanded me to get up. It is my turn now. You have been sufficiently humiliated, even to satisfy me. Rise!
gpt
You will restore her?
human
Never, so help me God; till my vow is fulfilled! Palsied be my heart, if it ever relents! Withered be my hand, if it ever confers a boon on you or one of your house! Blighted be my tongue, if it ever heap but curses on you! Doomed be my soul, if it ever forgives you for what you have done! Once again, lord earl, we are to meet, and then, beware!