When she was strong enough her nurse spoke:
"Will you keep the brat, or shall I kill it?" she asked.
"How can I kill my child?" said Lysbeth.
"It is the Spaniard's child also, and remember the curse you told me of,your own curse uttered on this thing before ever you were married? Ifit lives that curse shall cling to it, and through it you, too, shall beaccursed. Best let me kill it and have done."
"How can I kill my own child? Touch it not," answered Lysbeth sullenly.
So the black-eyed boy lived and throve.