Once you could never be near enough.

Ah, I was young and fair then! I'm old and ugly now.

Come nearer, for I can not speak aloud, and listen.

Do you know why I have sent for you ?" He had approached the bedside.

She caught his hand and held it in a vise-like clutch.
"No," he said, recoiling.
"To give you my dying malediction--to curse you with my latest breath! I hate you, Sir Jasper Kingsland, falsest of all mankind! and if the dead can return and torment the living, then do you beware of me!" She spoke in panting gasps, the death-rattle sounding in her skinny throat.