"And for this,--an orphan in the dungeon!" murmured the accusing heart of Viola,--"have I reserved his offspring! Zanoni, even in thought, ask not--ask not what I have done with the child I bore thee!"Night came; the crowd rushed to the grate to hear the muster-roll.(Called, in the mocking jargon of the day, "The Evening Gazette.") Her name was with the doomed.And the old priest, better prepared to die, but reserved from the death-list, laid his hands on her head, and blessed her while he wept.She heard, and wondered; but she did not weep.With downcast eyes, with arms folded on her bosom, she bent submissively to the call.But now another name was uttered; and a man, who had pushed rudely past her to gaze or to listen, shrieked out a howl of despair and rage.She turned, and their eyes met.Through the distance of time she recognised that hideous aspect.Nicot's face settled back into its devilish sneer."At least, gentle Neapolitan, the guillotine will unite us.Oh, we shall sleep well our wedding-night!" And, with a laugh, he strode away through the crowd, and vanished into his lair.
...
She was placed in her gloomy cell, to await the morrow.But the child was still spared her; and she thought it seemed as if conscious of the awful present.In their way to the prison it had not moaned or wept.It had looked with its clear eyes, unshrinking, on the gleaming pikes and savage brows of the huissiers.And now, alone in the dungeon, it put its arms round her neck, and murmured its indistinct sounds, low and sweet as some unknown language of consolation and of heaven.And of heaven it was!--for, at the murmur, the terror melted from her soul; upward, from the dungeon and the death,--upward, where the happy cherubim chant the mercy of the All-loving, whispered that cherub's voice.She fell upon her knees and prayed.The despoilers of all that beautifies and hallows life had desecrated the altar, and denied the God!--they had removed from the last hour of their victims the Priest, the Scripture, and the Cross!