Miss Silver met them—calm, grave, inscrutable.

"I am afraid it is true," she said, "awfully incredible as it seems. Sir Everard fainted stone-dead, my lady, at sight Of the blood upon the terrace."

"Great heavens! it is horrible! That unfortunate girl. And my son, Sybilla, where is he?"

"Asleep in his room, my lady. I administered an opiate. His very life, I think, depended on it. He will not awake for some hours. Do not disturb him. Will you come up to your old rooms and remove your things?"

They followed her. They had come to stay until the suspense was ended—to take care of the son and brother.

Lady Kingsland wrung her hands in a paroxysm of mortal anguish in the solitude of her own room.

"Oh, my God!" she cried, "have mercy and spare! My son, my son, my son! Would God I might die to save you from the worse horrors to come!"

All that day, all the next, and the next, and the next, the fruitless search for the murdered bride was made. All in vain; not the faintest trace was to be obtained.

Mr. Parmalee was searched for high and low. Immense rewards were offered for the slightest trace of him—immense rewards were offered for the body of the murdered woman. In vain, in vain!

Had the earth opened and swallowed them up, Mr. Parmalee and the baronet's lost bride could not more completely have vanished.

And, meanwhile, dark, ominous whispers rose and circulated from mouth to mouth, by whom originated no one knew. Sir Everard's frantic jealousy of Mr. Parmalee, his onslaught in the picture-gallery, the threats he had used again and again, overheard by so many, the oath he had sworn to take her life if she ever met the American artist again, his ominous conduct that night, his rushing like a madman to the place of tryst, his returning covered with blood—white, wild, like one insane. Then the finding of the scabbard, marked with his initials, and his own words:

"Blood! Good God! it is hers! She is murdered!"

The whispers rose and grew louder and louder; men looked in dark suspicion upon the young lord of Kingsland, and shrunk from him palpably. But as yet no one was found to openly accuse him.

Toward the close of the second week, a body was washed ashore, some miles down the coast, and the authorities there signified to the authorities of Worrel that the corpse might be the missing lady.

Sir Everard, his mother, and Miss Silver went at once. But the sight was too horrible to be twice looked at.

The height corresponded, and so did the long waves of flowing hair, and Sybilla Silver, the only one with nerve enough to glance again, pronounced it emphatically to be the body of Harriet, Lady Kingsland.

There was to be a verdict, and the trio remained; and before it commenced, the celebrated detective from Scotland Yard, employed from the first by Sir Everard, appeared upon the scene with crushing news. He held up a blood-stained dagger before the eye of the baronet:

"Do you know this little weapon, Sir Everard?"

Sir Everard looked at it and recognized it at once.

"It is mine," he replied. "I purchased it last year in Paris. My initials are upon it."

"So I see," was the dry response.

"How comes it here? Where did you find it?"

The detective eyed him narrowly, almost amazed at his coolness.

"I found it in a very queer place, Sir Everard—lodged in the branches of an elm-tree, not far from the stone terrace. It's a miracle it was ever found. I think this little weapon did the deed. I'll go and have a look at the body."

He went. Yes, there in the region of the heart was a gaping wound.

The inquest came on; the facts came out—mysteriously whispered before, spoken aloud now. And for the first time the truth dawned on the stunned baronet—he was suspected of the murder of the wife he loved!

The revolting atrocity, the unnatural horror of the charge, nerved him as nothing else could have done. His pale, proud face grew rigid as stone; his blue eyes flashed scornful defiance; his head reared itself haughtily aloft. How dare they accuse him of so monstrous a crime?

But the circumstantial evidence was crushing. Sybilla Silver's evidence alone would have damned him.

She gave it with evident reluctance; but give it she did with frightful force, and the bereaved young husband stood stunned at the terrible strength of the case she made out.

Everything told against him. His very eagerness to find the murderer seemed but throwing dust in their eyes. Not a doubt lingered in the minds of the coroner or his jury, and before sunset that day Sir Everard Kingsland was on his way to Worrel Jail to stand his trial at the coming assizes for the willful murder of Harriet, his wife.



CHAPTER XXX.

MISS SILVER ON OATH.

The day of trial came. Long, miserable weeks of waiting—weeks of anguish and remorse and despair had gone before, and Sir Everard Kingsland emerged from his cell to take his place in the criminal dock and be tried for his life for the greatest crime man can commit.

The court-house was crowded to suffocation—there was not even standing room. The long gallery was one living semicircle of eyes; ladies, in gleaming silks and fluttering plumes, thronged as to the opera, and slender throats were craned, and bright eyes glanced eagerly to catch one fleeting glimpse of the pale prisoner—a baronet who had murdered his bride before the honey-moon was well over.

The case was opened in a long and eloquent speech by the counsel for the crown, setting forth the enormity of the crime, citing a hundred incidents of the horrible and unnatural deeds jealousy had made men commit, from the days of the first murderer.

His address was listened to in profoundest silence. The charge he made out was a terribly strong one, and when he sat down and the first witness was called the hearts of Sir Everard Kingsland's friends sunk like lead.

He pleaded "Not guilty!" with an eye that flashed and a voice which rang, and a look in his pale, proud face that no murderer's face ever wore on this earth, and with those two words he had carried conviction to many a doubter.

"Call Sybilla Silver."

All in black—in trailing crape and sables, tall, stately, and dignified as a young duchess—Sybilla Silver obeyed the call.

She was deeply veiled at first, and when she threw back the heavy black veil, and the dark, bright, beautiful face looked full at judge and jury, a low murmur thrilled through the throng.

Those who saw her for the first time stared in wonder and admiration at the tall young woman in black, with the face and air of an Indian queen, and those to whom she was known thought that Miss Silver had never, since they saw her first, looked half as handsome as she did this day.

Her brilliant bloom of color was gone; she was interestingly pale, and her great black eyes were unnaturally deep and mournful.

"Your name is Sybilla Silver, and you reside at Kingsland Court. May we ask in what character—as friend or domestic?"

"As both. Sir Everard Kingsland has been my friend and benefactor from the first. I have been treated as a confidential friend both by him and his mother."

"By the deceased Lady Kingsland also, I conclude?"

"I was in the late Lady Kingsland's confidence—yes."

"You were the last who saw her alive on the night of March tenth—the night of the murder?"

"I was."

"Where did you part from her?"

"At her own chamber door. We bade each other good-night, and I retired to rest immediately."

"What hour was that?"

"About ten minutes before eleven."

"What communication were you making to Lady Kingsland at that hour?"

"I came to tell her the household had all retired—that she could quit the house unobserved whenever she chose."

"You knew, then, that she had an assignation for that night?"

"I did. It was I who brought her the message. She was to meet Mr. Parmalee at midnight, on the stone terrace."

"Who was this Mr. Parmalee?"

"An American gentleman—a traveling photographic artist, between whom and my lady a secret existed."

"A secret unknown to her husband?"

"Yes."

"And this secret was the cause of their mysterious midnight meeting?"

"It was. Mr. Parmalee dare not come to the house. Sir Everard had driven him forth with blows and abuse, and forbidden him to enter the grounds. My lady knew this, and was forced to meet him by stealth."

"Where was Sir Everard on this night?"

"At a military dinner given by Major Morrell, here in Worrel."

"What time did he return to Kingsland Court?"

"At half past eleven, as nearly as I can judge. I did not see him for some ten or fifteen minutes after; then Claudine, my lady's maid, came and aroused me—said Sir Everard was in my lady's dressing-room and wished to see me at once."

"You went?"

"I went immediately. I found Sir Everard in a state of passionate fury no words can describe. By some means he had learned of the assignation; through an anonymous note left upon his dressing-table, he said."

"Did you see this note?"

"I did not. He had none in his hand, nor have I seen any since."

"What did the prisoner say to you?"

"He asked me where was his wife—he insisted that I knew. He demanded an answer in such a way I dared not disobey."

"You told him?"

"I did. 'Is she with him?' he said, grasping my arm, and I answered, 'Yes.'"

"And then?"

"He asked me, 'Where?' and I told him; and he flung me from him, like a madman, and rushed out of the house, swearing, in an awful voice, 'I'll have their hearts' blood!'"

"Was it the first time you ever heard him threaten his wife's life?"

"No; the second. Once before I heard him say to her, at the close of a dreadful quarrel, 'If ever you meet that man again, I'll murder you, by the living Lord!'"

"What was the cause of the quarrel?"

"She had met Mr. Parmalee, by night and by stealth, in Sir Everard's absence, in the Beech Walk."

"And he discovered it?"

"He did. Edwards, his valet, had gone out with me to look for some article I had lost, and by chance we came upon them. We saw her give him money; we saw her dreadfully frightened; and when Edwards met his master again his face betrayed him—we had to tell him all."

"Did any one hear the prisoner use those words, 'I'll have their hearts' blood!' on the night of the murder, but yourself?"

"Yes; Edwards, his valet, and Claudine, the lady's maid. We crouched together in the hall, frightened almost to death."

"When did the prisoner reappear?"

"In little over half an hour. He rushed in in the same wild way he had rushed out—like a man gone mad."

"What did he say?"

"He shouted, 'It is false—a false, devilish slander! She is not there!'"

"Well—and then?"

"And then Claudine shrieked aloud and pointed to his hands. They were dripping with blood!"

"Did he attempt any explanation?"

"Not then. His first words were, as if he spoke in spite of himself: 'Blood! blood! Good God, it is hers! She is murdered!'"

"You say he offered no explanation then. Did he afterward?"

"I believe so. Not to me, but to others. He said his foot slipped on the stone terrace, and his hand splashed in a pool of something—his wife's blood."

"Can you relate what followed?"

"There was the wildest confusion. Claudine fainted. Sir Everard shouted for lights and men. 'There has been a horrible murder done,' he said. 'Fetch lights and follow me!' and then we all rushed to the stone terrace."

"And there you saw—what?"

"Nothing but blood. It was stained and clotted with blood everywhere; and so was the railing, as though a bleeding body had been cast over into the sea. On a projecting spike, as though torn off in the fall, we found my lady's India scarf."

"You think, then, he cast the body over after the deed was done?"

"I am morally certain he did. There was no other way of disposing of it. The tide was at flood, the current strong, and it was swept away at once."

"What was the prisoner's conduct on the terrace?"

"He fainted stone-dead before he was there five minutes. They had to carry him lifeless to the house."

"Was it not on that occasion the scabbard marked with his initials was discovered?"

"It was. One of the men picked it up. The dagger hidden in the elm-tree was found by the detective later."

"You recognized them both? You had seen them before in the possession of the prisoner?"

"Often. He brought the dagger from Paris. It used to lie on his dressing-table."

"Where he said he found the anonymous note?"

"Yes."

"Now Miss Silver," said the prosecuting attorney, "from what you said at the inquest and from what you have let drop to-day, I infer that my lady's secret was no secret to you. Am I right?"

There was a momentary hesitation—a rising: flush, a drooping of the brilliant eyes, then Miss Silver replied:

"Yes."

"How did you learn it?"

"Mr. Parmalee himself told me."

"You were Mr. Parmalee's intimate friend, then, it appears?"

"Y-e-e-s."

"Was he only a friend? He was a young man, and an unmarried one, as I am given to understand, and you, Miss Silver, are—pardon my boldness—a very handsome young lady."

Miss Silver's handsome face drooped lower. She made no reply.

"Answer, if you please," blandly insinuated the lawyer. "You have given your evidence hitherto with most unfeminine and admirable straightforwardness. Don't let us have a hitch now. Was this Mr. Parmalee a suitor of yours?"

"He was."

"An accepted one, I take it?"

"Y-e-e-s."

"And you know nothing now of his whereabouts? That is strange."

"It is strange, but no less true than strange. I have never seen or heard of Mr. Parmalee since the afternoon preceding that fatal night."

"How did you see him then?"

"He had been up to London for a couple of days on business connected with my lady; he had returned that afternoon with another person; he sent for me to inform my lady. I met and spoke to him on the street, just beyond the Blue Bell Inn."

"What had he to say to you?"

"Very little. He told me to tell my lady to meet him precisely at midnight, on the stone terrace. Before midnight the murder was done. What became of him, why he did not keep his appointment, I do not know. He left the inn very late, paid his score, and has never been seen or heard of since.

"Had he any interest in Lady Kingsland's death?"

"On the contrary, all his interest lay in her remaining alive. While she lived, he held a secret which she intended to pay him well to keep. Her death blights all his pecuniary prospects, and Mr. Parmalee loved money."

"Miss Silver, who was the female who accompanied Mr. Parmalee from London, and who quitted the Blue Bell Inn with him late on the night of the tenth?"

Again Sybilla hesitated, looked down, and seemed confused.

"It is not necessary, is it?" said she, pleadingly. "I had rather not tell. It—it is connected with the secret, and I am bound by a promise——"

"Which I think we must persuade you to break," interrupted the debonair attorney. "I think this secret will throw a light on the matter, and we must have it. Extreme cases require extreme measures, my dear young lady. Throw aside your honorable scruples, break your promise, and tell us this secret which has caused a murder."

Sybilla Silver looked from judge to jury, from counsel to counsel, and clasped her hands.

"Don't ask me!" she cried—"oh, pray, don't ask me to tell this!"

"But we must—it is essential—we must have it, Miss Silver. Come, take courage. It can do no harm now, you know—the poor lady is dead. And first—to plunge into the heart of it at once—tell us who was the mysterious lady with Mr. Parmalee?"

The hour of Sybilla's triumph had come. She lifted her black eyes, glittering with livid flame, and shot a quick, sidelong glance at the prisoner. Awfully white, awfully calm, he sat like a man of stone, awaiting to hear what would cost him his life.

"Who was she?" the lawyer repeated.

Sybilla turned toward him and answered, in a voice plainly audible the length and breadth of the, long room:

"She called herself Mrs. Denover. Mr. Parmalee called her his sister. Both were false. She was Captain Harold Hunsden's divorced wife, Lady Kingsland's mother, and a lost, degraded outcast!"



CHAPTER XXXI.

FOUND GUILTY.

There was the silence of death. Men looked blankly in each other's faces, then at the prisoner. With an awfully corpse-like face, and wild, dilated eyes, he sat staring at the witness—struck dumb.

The silence was broken by the lawyer.

"This is a very extraordinary statement, Miss Silver," he said. "Are you quite certain of its truth? It is an understood thing that the late Captain Hunsden was a widower."

"He was nothing of the sort. It suited his purpose to be thought so. Captain Hunsden was a very proud man. It is scarcely likely he would announce his bitter shame to the world."

"And his daughter was cognizant of these facts?"

"Only from the night of her father's death. On that night he revealed to her the truth, under a solemn oath of secrecy. Previous to that she had believed her mother dead. That death-bed oath was the cause of all the trouble between Sir Everard and his wife. Lady Kingsland would have died rather than break it."

She glanced again—swift, keen, sidelong, a glance of diabolical triumph—at the prisoner. But he did not see it, he only heard the words—the words that seemed burning to the core of his heart.

This, then, was the secret, and the wife he had loved and doubted and scorned had been true to him as truth itself; and now he knew her worth and purity and high honor when it was too late.

"How came Mr. Parmalee to be possessed of the secret? Was he a relative?"

"No. He learned the story by the merest accident. He left New York for England in his professional capacity as photographic artist, on speculation. On board the steamer was a woman—a steerage passenger—poor, ill, friendless, and alone. He had a kindly heart, it appears, under his passion for money-making, and when this woman—this Mrs. Denover—fell ill, he nursed her as a son might. One night, when she thought herself dying, she called him to her bedside and told him her story."

Clear and sweet Sybilla Silver's voice rang from end to end, each word cutting mercilessly through the unhappy prisoner's very soul.

"Her maiden name had been Maria Denover, and she was a native of New York City. At the age of eighteen an English officer met her while on a visit to Niagara, fell desperately in love with her, and married her out of hand.

"Even at that early age she was utterly lost and abandoned; and she only married Captain Hunsden in a fit of mad desperation and rage because John Thorndyke, her lover, scornfully refused to make her his wife.

"Captain Hunsden took her with him to Gibraltar, where his regiment was stationed, serenely unconscious of his terrible disgrace. One year after a daughter was born, but neither husband nor child could win this woman from the man she passionately loved.

"She urged her husband to take her back to New York to see her friends; she pleaded with a vehemence he could not resist, and in an evil hour he obeyed.

"Again she met her lover. Three weeks after the wronged husband and all the world knew the revolting story of her degradation. She had fled with Thorndyke."

Sybilla paused to let her words take effect. Then she slowly went on:

"There was a divorce, of course; the matter was hushed up as much as possible; Captain Hunsden went back to his regiment a broken-hearted man.

"Two years after he sailed for England, but not to remain. How he wandered over the world, his daughter accompanying him, from that time until he returned to Hunsden Hall, every one knows. But during all that time he never heard one word of or from his lost wife.

"She remained with Thorndyke—half starved, brutally beaten, horribly ill-used—taunted from the first by him, and hated at the last. But she clung to him through all, as women do cling; she had given up the whole world for his sake; she must bear his abuse to the end. And she did, heroically.

"He died—stabbed in a drunken brawl—died with her kneeling by his side, and his last word an oath. He died and was buried, and she was alone in the world as miserable a woman as the wide earth ever held.

"One wish alone was strong within her—to look again upon her child before she died. She had no wish to speak to her, to reveal herself, only to look once more upon her face, then lie down by the road-side and die.

"She knew she was married and living here; Thorndyke had maliciously kept her au fait of her husband and child. She sold all she possessed but the rags upon her back, and took a steerage passage for England.

"That was the story she told Mr. Parmalee. 'You will go to Devonshire,' she said to him; 'you will see my child. Tell her I died humbly praying her forgiveness. She is rich; she will reward you.'

"Mr. Parmalee immediately made up his mind that this sick woman, who had a daughter the wife of a wealthy baronet, was a great deal too valuable, in a pecuniary light, to be allowed 'to go off the hooks,' as he expressed it, thus easily.

"He pooh-poohed the notion of her dying, cheered her up, nursed her assiduously, and finally brought her around. He left her in London, posted down here, and remained here until the return of Sir Everard and my lady from their honey-moon trip. The day after he presented himself to them—displayed his pictures, and among others showed my lady her mother's portrait, taken at the time of her marriage. She recognized it at once—her father had left her its counterpart on the night he died. He knew her secret, and she had to meet him if he chose. He threatened to tell Sir Everard else, and the thought of her husband ever discovering her mother's shame was agony to her. She knew how proud he was, how proud his mother was, and she would have died to save him pain. And that is why she met Mr. Parmalee by night and by stealth—why she gave him money—why all the horrors that have followed occurred."

Once more the cruel, clear, unfaltering voice paused. A groan broke the silence—a groan of such unutterable anguish and despair from the tortured husband that every heart thrilled to hear it.

With that agonized groan, his face dropped in his hands, and he never raised it again. He heard no more—he sat bowed, paralyzed, crushed with misery and remorse. His wife—his lost wife—had been as pure and stainless as the angels, and he—oh, pitiful God! how merciless he had been!

Sybilla Silver was dismissed; other witnesses were called. Edwards and Claudine were the only ones examined that day, Sybilla had occupied the court so long. They corroborated all she had said. The prisoner was remanded, and the court adjourned.

The night of agony which followed to the wretched prisoner no words can ever tell. All he had suffered hitherto seemed as nothing. Men recoiled in horror at the sight of him next day; it was as if a galvanized corpse had entered the court-room.

He sat in dumb misery, neither heeding nor hearing. Only once was his attention dimly aroused. It was at the evidence of a boy—a ragged youth of some fifteen years, who gave his name as Bob Dawson.

"He had been out late on that 'ere night. It was between ten and eleven that he was a-dodgin' round near the stone terrace. Then he sees a lady a-waitin', which the moon was shining on her face, and he knowed my lady herself. He dodged more than hever at the sight, and peeked round a tree. Just then came along a tall gent in a cloak, like Sir Everard wears, and my lady screeches out at sight of him. Sir Everard, he spoke in a deep, 'orrid voice, and the words were so hawful, he—Bob Dawson—remembered them from that day to this.

"'I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever met that man again. False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your doom!'

"And then my lady screeches out again and says to him—she says:

"'Have mercy! I am innocent, Heverard! Oh, for God's sake, do not murder me!'

"And Sir Heverard, he says, fierce and 'orrid:

"'Wretch, die! You are not fit to pollute the hearth! Go to your grave with my 'ate and my cuss!'

"And then," cried Bob Dawson, trembling all over as he told it, "I see him lift that there knife, gentlemen, and stab her with all his might, and she fell back with a sort of groan, and he lifts her up and pitches of her over hinto the sea. And then he cuts, he does, and I—I was frightened most hawful, and I cut, too."

"Why did you not tell this before?" the judge asked.

"'Cos I was scared—I was," Bob replied, in tears. "I didn't know but that they might took and hang me for seeing it. I told mammy the other night, and mammy she came and told the gent there," pointing one finger at the counsel for the crown, "and he said I must come and tell it here; and that's all I've got to tell, and I'm werry sorry as hever I seed it, and it's all true, s'help me!"

Sybilla Silver's eyes fairly blazed with triumphant fire. Her master, the arch-fiend, seemed visibly coming to her aid; and the most miserable baronet pressed his hand to his throbbing head.

There was the summing up of the evidence—one damning mass against the prisoner. There was the judge's charge to the jury. Sir Everard heard no words—saw nothing. He fell into a stunned stupor that was indeed like madness.

The jury retired—vaguely he saw them go. They returned. Was it minutes or hours they had been gone? His dulled eyes looked at them expressionless.

"How say you, gentlemen of the jury—guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty!"

Amid dead silence the word fell. Every heart thrilled with awe but one. The condemned man sat staring at them with an awful, dull, glazed stare.

The judge arose and put on his black cap, his face white, his lips trembling.

Only the last words seemed to strike him—to crash into his whirling brain with a noise like thunder.

"And that there you be hanged by the neck until dead, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"

He sat down. The awful silence was something indescribable. One or two women in the gallery fainted, then the hush was broken in a blood-curdling manner.



CHAPTER XXXII.

SYBILLA'S TRIUMPH.

It was the night before the execution. In his feebly lighted cell the condemned man sat alone, trying to read by the palely glimmering lamp. The New Testament lay open before him, and on this, the last night of his life, he was reading the story of Gethsemane and Calvary. On this last night heart and soul were at rest, and an infinite calm illumined every feature.

Weeks had passed since the day when sentence of death had been pronounced upon him, and the condemned man had lain burning in the wild delirium of brain fever.

Sybilla Silver had been his most sleepless, his most devoted attendant. Her evidence had wrung his heart—had condemned him to the most shameful death man can die; but she had only told the truth, and truth is mighty and will prevail. So she came and nursed him now, forgetting to eat or sleep in her zeal and devotion, and finally wooed him back to life and reason, while those who loved him best prayed God, by night and by day, that he might die.

But, while hovering in the "Valley of the Shadow," death had lost all its terror for him—he rose a changed man.

"And she is there," he said, with his eyes fixed dreamily on the one patch of blue May sky he could see between his prison bars—"my wronged, my murdered, my beloved wife! Ah, yes, death is the highest boon the judges of this world can give me now!"

And so the last night came. He sat alone. The jailer who was to share his cell on this last, awful vigil had been bribed to leave him by himself until the latest moment.

"Come in before midnight," he said, smiling slightly, "and guard me while I sleep, if you wish. Until then, I should like to be left quite alone."

And the man obeyed, awed unutterably by the sublime look of that marble face.

"He never did it," he said to his wife. "No murderer ever looked with such clear eyes and such a sweet smile as that. Sir Everard Kingsland is as hinnocent as a hangel, and there'll be a legal murder done to-morrow. I wish it was that she-devil that swore his life away instead, I'd turn her off myself with the greatest pleasure."

As if his thoughts had evoked her, a tall dark figure stood before him—Miss Sybilla Silver herself.

"Good Lord!" cried the jailer, aghast; "who'd a-thought it? What do you want?"

"To see the prisoner," responded Sybilla.

"You can't see him, then," said the jailer, gruffly. "He ain't going to see anybody this last night, ma'am."

"Mr. Markham"—she came over and laid her velvet paw on his arm, and magnetized him with her big black eyes—"think better of it. It is his last night. His mother lies on the point of death. I come here with a last sacred message from a dying mother to a dying son. You have an aged mother yourself, Mr. Markham. Ah! think again, and don't be hard upon us."

A sovereign slipped into his palm.

"For only half an hour, then," he said; "mind that. Come along!"

The key clanked; the door swung back. The pale prisoner lifted his serene eyes; the tall, dark figure stepped in.

"Sybilla!"

"Yes, Sir Everard."

The great door closed with a bang.

"Half an hour, mind," reiterated the jailer.

The key turned; they were alone together within those massive walls.

"I thought we parted yesterday for the last time in this lower world," said the baronet, calmly.

"Did you? You were mistaken, then. We meet again and part again forever to-night, for the last time in this lower world, or that upper one either, in which you believe, and which I know to be a very pretty little fable."

She laughed a low, derisive laugh, and came up close to him. He shut his book, and looked at her in wonder.

"What do you mean? Why have you come hither to-night? Why do you look like that? What is it all?"

"It is this! That the mask worn two long years is about to be torn off. It means that you are to hear the truth; it means that the purpose of my life is fulfilled; it means that the hour of my triumph has come."

He sat and looked at her, lost in wonder.

"You do not speak—you sit and stare as though you could not believe your eyes or ears. It is hard to believe, I know—the humble, the meek Sybilla metamorphosed thus. But the Sybilla Silver you knew was a delusion. Behold the real one, for the first time in your life!"

"Woman, who are you? What are you?"

"I am the granddaughter of Zenith the gypsy, the woman your father wronged to the death, and your bitterest enemy, Sir Everard Kingsland!"

"The granddaughter of Zenith the gypsy?" he repeated. "Then Sybilla Silver is not your name?"

"The name is as false as the character in which she showed herself—that of your friend."

"And yet, the first time we met you saved my life."

"No thanks for that. I did not know you, though if I had I would have saved it, all the same. That was not the death you were to die. I saved you for the gallows."

"Sybilla, Sybilla!"

"I saved you for the gallows!" she repeated. "I come here to-night to tell you the truth, and you shall hear it. Did I not swear your life away? Did I not nurse you back from the jaws of death? All for what? That the astrologer's prediction might be fulfilled—that the heir of Kingsland Court might die a felon's death on the scaffold!"

"The astrologer's prediction?" he cried, catching some of her excitement. "What do you know about that?"

"Everything—everything!" she exclaimed, exultingly. "Far more than you do, for you only know such a thing exists—you know nothing of its contents. Oh, no! mamma guarded her darling boy too carefully for that, notwithstanding your dying father's command. But in spite of her it has come true."

"What was the astrologer's prediction—that terrible prediction that shortened my father's life?"

"It was this—that his only son and heir, born on that night, would die by the hand of the common hangman, a murderer's death on the scaffold. Enough to blight any father's life who believed in it, was it not?"

"It was devilish. My poor father! Tell me the name of the fiend incarnate who could do so diabolical a deed, for you know?"

"I do. That man was my father."

"Your father?"

"Ay, Achmet the Astrologer. Ha! ha! As much an astrologer as you or I. It was his part of our vengeance—my part was to see it carried out. I swore, by my dying mother's bedside, to devote my life to that purpose. Have I not kept my oath?"

She folded her arms and looked at him with a face of devilish malignity. He recoiled from her as from a visible demon.

"For God's sake, go! You bring a breath of hell into this prison. Go—go! You have done your master's work. Leave me!"

"Not yet; you have heard but half the truth. Oh, potent Prince of Kingsland, hear me out! You will be hanged tomorrow morning for murdering your wife! You didn't murder her, did you? Who do you suppose did it?"

He rose to his feet, staggered back against the wall, his eyes starting from their sockets.

"Great God!"

"Ah, you anticipate, I see. Yes, my lord of Kingsland, I murdered your pretty little wife! Keep off! I have a pistol here, and I'll blow your brains out if you come one step nearer—if you utter a word! I don't want to cheat Jack Ketch, if I can. And it is no use your crying for help—there is no one to hear, and these stone walls are thick. Stand there, my rich, my noble, my princely brother, and listen to the truth."

He stood, holding by the wall, paralyzed with horror.

"Yes, I murdered her!" Sybilla reiterated, with sneering triumph. "Disguised in your clothes, using your dagger; and she died, believing it to be you. All I told, and all the boy Dawson told at the trial was true as the Heaven you believe in. Your wife was true as truth, pure as the angels. She loved only you—she loved you with her whole heart and soul. Her vow by the bedside of her dying father chained her tongue. To save you the shame, the humiliation of learning the truth about her degraded mother, she met in secret this Mr. Parmalee. On that night she went to the stone terrace to see her mother, for the first, the last, the only time. I arranged it all—I lured her there—I stabbed her, and flung her over into the sea! I hated her for your sake—I hated her for her own. And to-morrow, for my crime, you will die!"

And still he gazed, paralyzed, stunned, speechless.

"Poor fool!" she said, with unutterable scorn—"poor, blind, besotted fool! and this is the end of all! Young, handsome, rich, high-born, surrounded by friends, the wealthy and the great, one woman's work brings you to this! I have said my say, and now I leave you; here we part, Sir Everard Kingsland. Call the jailer; tell him what I have told you—tell it through the length and breadth of the land, if you choose. Not one will believe you. It is an utterly mad and impossible tale. I have only to calmly and scornfully deny it. And to-morrow, when the glorious sun rises I will be far away. In Spain, the land of my mother and my grandmother, I go to join our race—to become a dweller in tents—a gypsy, free as the wind that blows. The gold your lavish hand has given me will make me and my tribe rich for life. I go to be their queen. Farewell, Sir Everard Kingsland. My half hour has expired; the jailer comes to let me out. But first I go straight from here to Kingsland Court, to tell your mother what I have just told you—to tell her her idolized son dies for my crime, and to kill her, if I can, with the news."

The door swung open—Miss Silver flitted out. It broke the spell. The prisoner started forward, tried hoarsely, vainly to speak. Enfeebled by long illness, by repeated shocks, he staggered a pace or two and fell face forward at the jailer's feet like a log.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH.

And while Sir Everard Kingsland lay in his felon's cell, doomed to die, where was she for whose murder he was to give his life? Really murdered?

Harriet—Lady Kingsland—was not dead. Hundreds of miles of sea and land rolled between her and Kingsland Court, and in a stately New York mansion she looked out at the sparkling April sunshine, with life and health beating strong in her breast.

Mr. George Washington Parmalee had saved her life. On that tragic night of March tenth, he had quitted the Blue Bell with Mrs. Denover, and descended at once to the shore, where a boat from the "Angelina Dobbs" was awaiting them.

Mr. Parmalee took the oars and rowed away in the direction of the park. The sickly glimmer of the moon showed him the stone terrace and the solitary figure standing waiting there. But the noise of the wash on the beach and the sighing of the trees prevented Harriet from hearing the dip of the sculls. On the sea the night was so dark that the boat glided along unseen.

He had neared the spot and rowed softly along under the deep shadow of overhanging trees, when he espied a second figure, muffled in a cloak, emerge and confront the lady. He recognized, or thought he recognized, the baronet, and came to a deadlock, with a stifled imprecation.

"It's all up with them three hundred pounds this bout," he thought; "confound the luck!"

He could not hear the words—the distance was too great—but he could see them plainly. The wild shriek of Lady Kingsland would have been echoed by her terrified mother had not the artist clapped his hand firmly over her mouth.

"Darnation! Dry up, can't you? Oh, good God!"

He started up in horror, nearly upsetting the boat. He had seen the fatal blow given, he saw the body hurled over the railing, and he saw the face of the murderer!

A flash of moonlight shone full upon it bending down, and he recognized, in men's clothes, the woman who was to be his wife.

The assassin fled. As she vanished G. W. Parmalee looked up with a hollow groan, remained irresolute for an instant, shook himself, and took up the oars.

"We must pick up the body," he said, in an unearthly voice. "The waves will wash it away in five minutes."

He rowed ashore, lifted the lifeless form, carried it into the boat, and laid it across the mother's knee.

"We'll put for the 'Angelina,'" he observed. "If there's any life left, we'll fetch her to there."

"Her heart beats," said Mrs. Denover, raining tears and kisses on the cold face. "Oh, my child, my child! it is your wretched mother who has done this!"

They reached the "Angelina Dobbs," where they were impatiently waited for, and captain and crew stared aghast at sight of the supposed corpse.

"Do you take the 'Angelina Dobbs' for a cemetery, Mr. Parmalee?" demanded Captain Dobbs, with asperity. "Who's that air corpse?"

"Come into the cabin and I'll tell you."

There he heard, in wonder and pity, the story.

"Poor creeter! Pretty as a picter, too! Who did the deed?"

"It looked like her husband," replied Mr. Parmalee. "He was as jealous as a Turk, anyway."

"She is not dead!" exclaimed Mrs. Denover; "her heart flutters. Oh! pray leave me alone with her; I think I know what to do."

The men quitted the cabin. Mrs. Denover removed her daughter's clothing and examined the wound. It was deep and dangerous looking, but not necessarily fatal—she knew that, and she had had considerable experience during her rough life with John Thorndyke. She stanched the flow of blood, bathed and dressed the wound, and finally the dark eyes opened and looked vaguely in her face.

"Who are you? Where am I?" very feebly.

"I am your nurse," she said, tremulously, "and you are with friends who love you."

"Ah! I remember." A look of intense anguish crossed her face. "You are my mother!"

"Your most wretched mother! Oh, my darling, I am not worthy to look in your face!"

"You are all that is left to me now—ah, Heaven pity me!—since he thinks me guilty. I remember all. He tried to murder me; he called me a name I will never forget. Mother, how came I here? Is this a ship?"

Very gently, softly, soothingly the mother told how Mr. Parmalee had saved her life.

"And where are we going now?"

"To Southampton, I think. But we will return if you wish it."

"To the man who tried to take my life? Ah, no, mother! Never again in this world to him! Call Mr. Parmalee."

"My dear, you must not talk so much; you are not able."

"Call Mr. Parmalee."

Mrs. Denover obeyed.

The artist presented himself promptly, quite overjoyed.

"Why, now," said Mr. Parmalee, "I'd rather see this than have a thousand dollars down. Why, you look as spry almost as ever. How do you feel?"

"You have been very good to me and my mother. Be good until the end. If I die, bury me where he will never hear of my death nor look upon my grave. If I live, take me back to New York—I have friends there—and don't let him know whether I am living or dead."

"I'll do it! It's a go! I owe him one for that kicking, and, by Jove! here's a chance to pay him. Jest you keep up heart and get well, and we'll take you to New York in the 'Angelina Dobbs,' and nobody be the wiser."

Mr. Parmalee kept his word. They lay aboard the vessel while loading at Southampton, and a surgeon was in daily attendance upon the sick girl.

"You fetch her round," said Mr. Parmalee. "She's the skipper's only daughter—this 'ere craft, the 'Angelina Dobbs,' is named after her—and he'll foot the bill like a lud."

The surgeon did his best, and was liberally paid out of the three hundred pounds which Mrs. Denover had found in the bosom of Harriet's dress. But for days and weeks she lay very ill—ill unto death—delirious, senseless. Then the fever yielded, and death-like weakness ensued.

This, too, passed; and by the time the "Angelina" reached New York, the poor girl was able to saunter up and down the deck, and drink in the life-giving sea air.

Thus, while fruitless search was being made for G. W. Parmalee throughout London—while detectives examined every passenger who sailed in the emigrant ships—he was safely skimming the Atlantic in Captain Dobb's cockleshell.

To do him justice, he never thought—and no more did Harriet—of what might follow her disappearance. The baronet would leave the country, they both imagined, and her fate would remain forever a mystery.

So the supposed dead bride reached New York in safety, and that body washed ashore and identified by Sybilla Silver, to suit her own ends, was some nameless unfortunate.

On the pier in New York Mr. Parmalee and Lady Kingsland parted.

"I am going to my uncle's house," she said; "my mother's brother. Hugh Denover is a rich merchant, and will receive us, I know. Keep my story secret, and come and see me next time you visit New York. Here is my uncle's address; give me yours, and if ever it is in my power, I will not forget how nobly you have acted and how inadequately you have been repaid."

They shook hands and parted.

Mr. Parmalee went "down East," not at all satisfied with his little English speculation. He had lost a handsome reward and a handsomer wife. He dared hardly think to himself that Sybilla had done the horrid deed, and he had never breathed his suspicion to Harriet.

"Let her think it's the baronet, if she's a mind to. I ain't a-going to do him a good turn. But I know better."

Harriet and her mother sought out Mr. Denover. He lived in a stately up-town mansion, with his wife and one son, and received both poor waifs with open arms. His lost sister had been his boyhood's pet; he had nothing for her now but pity and forgiveness, when she looked at him with death in her face.

"My poor Maria, don't talk of the wretched past. I love my only sister in spite of all, and neither she nor her child shall want a home while I have one."

Harriet told her story very briefly. Her father had been dead for two years. She had married; she had not lived happily with her husband, and they had parted. She had come to Uncle Hugh; she knew he would give his sister's daughter a home.

She told her story with dry eyes and unfaltering voice; but Mr. Denover, looking in that pale, rigid young face, read more of her despair than she dreamed.

"Her husband has been some English grandee, like Captain Hunsden, I dare say," he thought, "proud as Lucifer, and when he discovered that about her mother, despised and ill-treated her."

The penitent wife of Captain Hunsden did not long survive to enjoy her new home. Two weeks after their arrival she lay upon her death-bed. Nothing could save her. She had been doomed for months—life gave way when the excitement that had buoyed her up was gone.

By night and day Harriet watched by her bedside, and the repentant Magdalen's last hours were the most blessed she had ever known.

"I do not deserve to die like this," she said. "Oh, my darling, your love makes my death-bed very sweet!"

They laid her in Greenwood, and once more Harriet's desolation seemed renewed.

"I am doomed to lose all I love," she thought, despairingly—"father, husband, mother—all!"

She drooped day by day, despite the tenderest care. No smile ever lighted her pale face, no happy light ever shone from the mournful dark eyes.

"Her heart is broken," said Uncle Hugh; "she will die by inches before our very eyes!"

And Uncle Hugh's prediction might have been fulfilled had not a new excitement arisen to stimulate her to renewed life and send her back to England.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

MR. PARMALEE TURNS UP TRUMPS.

Mr. G. W. Parmalee went down to Dobbsville, Maine, and reposed again in the bosom of his family. He went to work on the paternal acres for awhile, gave that up in disgust, set up once more a picture-gallery, and took the portraits of the ladies and gentlemen of Dobbsville at fifty cents a head.

Mr. Parmalee was fast becoming a misanthrope. His speculation had failed, his love was lost; nothing lay before him but a long and dreary existence spent in immortalizing in tin-types the belles and beaus of Dobbsville.

Sometimes a fit of penitence overtook him when his thoughts reverted to the desolate young creature, worse than widowed, dragging out life in New York.

"I'd ought to tell her," Mr. Parmalee thought. "It ain't right to let her keep on thinking that her husband murdered her. But then it goes awfully against a feller's grain to peach on the girl he meant to marry. Still——"

The remorseful reflection haunted him, do what he would. He took to dreaming of the young baronet, too. Once he saw him in his shroud, lying dead on the stone terrace, and at sight of him the corpse had risen up, ghastly in its grave clothes, and, pointing one quivering finger at him, said, in an awful voice:

"G. W. Parmalee, it is you who have done this!"

And Mr. Parmalee had started up in bed, the cold sweat standing on his brow like a shower of pease.

"I won't stand this, by thunder!" thought the artist next morning, in a fit of desperation. "I'll write up to New York this very day and tell her all, so help me Bob!"

But "l'homme propose"—you know the proverb. Squire Brown, who lived half a mile off, and had never heard of Harriet in his life, altered Mr. Parmalee's plans.

The worthy squire, jogging along in his cart from market, came upon the artist, sitting on the top rail of the gate, whittling, and looking gloomily dejected.

"Hi! George, my boy!" cried out the squire, "what's gone wrong? You look as dismal as a graveyard!"

"W-a-a-l!" drawled the artist, who wasn't going to tell his troubles on the house-tops, "there ain't nothin' much to speak of. It's the all-fired dullness of this pesky one-horse village, where there ain't nothin' stirrin', 'cept flies in fly-time, from one year's end to t'other."

"See what comes of traveling," said Squire Brown. "If you had stayed at home, instead of flying round England, you'd have been as right as a trivet. My 'pinion is, you've been and left a gal behind. Here's a London paper for you. My missus gets 'em every mail. Perhaps you'll see your gal's name in the list of marriages."

Mr. Parmalee took the paper chucked at him with languid indifference.

"Any news?" he asked.

"Lots—just suited to your complaint. A coal mine in Cornwall's been and caved in and buried alive fifteen workmen; there's been a horrid riot in Leeds; and a baronet in Devonshire is sentenced to be hung for murdering his wife."

Mr. Parmalee gave one yell—one horrid yell, like a Comanche war-whoop—and leaped off the fence.

"What did you say?" he roared. "A baronet in Devonshire for murdering his wife?"

"Thunder!" ejaculated Squire Brown. "You didn't know him, did you? Maybe you took his picture when in England? Yes, a baronet, and his name it's Sir Everard Kingsland."

With an unearthly groan, Mr. Parmalee tore open the paper.

"They haven't hanged him yet, have they?" he gasped. "Oh, good Lord above! what have I done?"

Squire Brown stared, a spectacle of dense bewilderment.

"You didn't do the murder, I hope?" he asked.

The squire rode away, and Mr. Parmalee sat for a good hour, half stupefied over the account. The paper contained a resume of the trial, from first to last—dwelling particularly on Miss Silver's evidence, and ending with the sentence of the court.

The paper dropped from the artist's paralyzed hand. He covered his face and sat in a trance of horror and remorse. His mother came to call him to dinner, and as he looked up in answer to her call, she started back with a scream at sight of his unearthly face.

"Lor' a-massy, George Washington! what ever has come to you?"

"Pack up my clean socks and shirts, mother," he said. "I'm going back to England by the first steamer."

Late next evening Mr. Parmalee reached New York. Early the following morning he strode up to the brownstone mansion of Mr. Denover and sharply rang the bell.

"Is Lady—I mean, is Mr. Denover's niece to home?"

The servant ushered him into the drawing-room.

"Who shall I say?"

Mr. Parmalee handed her his card.

"Give her that. Tell her it's a matter of life and death."

The servant stared, took the pasteboard and vanished. Ten minutes after, and Harriet, in a white morning robe, pale and terrified, hurried in.

"Mr. Parmalee, has anything—have you heard—— Oh, what is it?"

"It is this, Lady Kingsland: your husband has been arrested and tried for your murder!"

She clasped her hands together and sunk into a seat. She did not cry out or exclaim. She sat aghast.

"He has been tried and condemned, and——"

He could not finish the sentence, out of pity for that death-like face.

But she understood him, and a scream rang through the house which those who heard it might never forget.

"Oh, my God! he is condemned to be hanged!"

"He is," said Mr. Parmalee; "but we'll stop 'em. Now, don't you go and excite yourself, my lady, because you'll need all your strength and presence of mind in this here emergency. There's a steamer for Liverpool to-morrow. I secured our passage before I ever came here."

"May the great God grant we be in time! Oh, my love! my darling! my husband! I never thought of this. Let me but save you, and I am ready to die!"

"Only hear her!" cried the electrified artist, "talking like that about the man she thinks stabbed her. I do believe she loves him yet."

"With my whole heart. I would die this instant to save him. I love him as dearly as when I stood beside him at the altar a blessed bride."

"Well, I'll be darned," burst out Mr. Parmalee, "if this don't beat all creation! Now, then, what would you give to know it was not Sir Everard who stabbed you that night?"

"Not Sir Everard? But I saw him; I heard him speak. He did it in a moment of madness, Mr. Parmalee, and Heaven only knows what anguish and remorse he has suffered since."

"I hope so," said Mr. Parmalee. "I hope he's gone through piles of agony, for I don't like a bone in his body, if it comes to that. But, I repeat, it was not your husband who stabbed you on the stone terrace that dismal night. It was—it was Sybilla Silver!"

"What?"

"Yes, ma'am—sounds incredible, but it's a fact. She rigged out in a suit of Sir Everard's clothes, mimicked his voice, and did the deed. I saw her face when she pitched you over the rail as plain as I see your'n this minute, and I'm ready to swear to it through all the courts in Christendom. She hated you like pisen, and the baronet, too, and she thinks she's put an end to you both; but if we don't give her an eye-opener pretty soon, my name ain't Parmalee."

She sunk on her knees and held up her clasped hands.

"Thank God! thank God! thank God!"

Next day they sailed for England. The passage was all that could be desired, even by the impatience of Harriet.

They arrived in Liverpool. Mr. Parmalee and his companion posted full speed down to Devonshire. In the luminous dusk of the soft May evening they reached Worrel, Harriet's thick veil hiding her from every eye.

"We'll go to Mr. Bryson's first," said Parmalee, Bryson being Sir Everard's lawyer. "We're in the very nick of time; to-morrow morning at day-dawn is fixed for——"

"Oh, hush!" in a voice of agony; "not that fearful word!"

They reached the house of Mr. Bryson. He sat over his eight-o'clock cup of tea, with a very gloomy face. He had known Sir Everard all his life—he had known his beautiful bride, so passionately beloved. He had bidden the doomed baronet a last farewell that afternoon.

"He never did it," said he to himself. "There is a horrible mystery somewhere. He never did it—I could stake my life on his innocence—and he is to die to-morrow, poor fellow! That missing man, Parmalee, did it, and that fierce young woman with the big black eyes and deceitful tongue was his aider and abettor. If I could only find that man!"

A servant entered with a card, "G. W. Parmalee." The lawyer rose with a cry.

"Good Heaven above! It can't be! It's too good to be true! He never would rush into the lion's den in this way. John Thomas, who gave you this?"

"Which the gentleman is in the droring-room, sir," responded John Thomas, "as likewise the lady."

Mr. Bryson rushed for the drawing-room, flung wide the door, and confronted Mr. Parmalee.

"Good-evening, squire," said the American.

"You here!" gasped the Sawyer—"the man for whom we have been scouring the kingdom!"

"You'd oughter scoured the Atlantic," replied the artist, with infinite calm. "I've been home to see my folks. I suppose you wanted me to throw a little light on that 'ere horrid murder?"

"I suspect you know more of that murder than any other man alive!" said the lawyer.

"Do tell! Well, now, I ain't a-going to deny it—I do know all about it, squire."

"What?"

"Precisely! Yes, sir. I saw the deed done."

"You did? Good heavens!"

"Don't swear, squire. Yes, I saw the stab given, with that 'ere long knife; and it wasn't the baronet did it, either, though you're going to hang him for it to-morrow."

"In Heaven's name, man, who did the deed?"

"Sybilla Silver!"

"I knew it—I thought it—I said it! The she-devil! Poor, poor Lady Kingsland!"

"Ma'am," said the American, turning to his veiled companion, "perhaps it will relieve Mr. Bryson's gushing bosom to behold your face. Jest lift that 'ere veil."

"All-merciful Heaven! the dead alive! Lady Kingsland!"



CHAPTER XXXV.

HIGHLY SENSATIONAL.

Sybilla Silver went straight from the prison cell of Sir Everard to the sick-room of his mother. It was almost eleven when she reached the Court, but they watched the night through in that house of mourning.

Leaving the fly before the front entrance, Sybilla stole round to that side door she had used the memorable night of March tenth. She admitted herself without difficulty, and proceeded at once to Lady Kingsland's sick-room.

She tapped lightly at the door. It was opened instantly, and the pale face of Mildred looked out.

"You here! How dare you, you cruel, wicked, merciless woman!" she indignantly cried.

"Hard words, Miss Kingsland. Let me in, if you please—I wish to see your mother."

"You shall not come in! The sight of you will kill her! Was it not enough to swear away the life of her only son? Do you want to blast her dying hours with the sight of your base, treacherous face?"

With a look of scornful contempt, Sybilla took her by the shoulder and drew her out of the room.

"Don't be an idiot, Mildred Kingsland! I gave my evidence—how could I help it? It wasn't my fault that your brother murdered his wife. I must see your mother for ten minutes. I bring a last message from her son."

"You have been to prison!" she cried. "You dare look my brother in the face!"

"Just as easily as I do his sister. Am I to see Lady Kingsland, or shall I go as I came, with Sir Everard's message undelivered?"

"The sight of you will kill her."

"We must risk that."

She passed into the room as she spoke.

"Wait here," she said. "I must see her quite alone, but it will only be for a few minutes."

She closed the door and stood alone in the sick lady's room.

"Is it you, Mildred? The light is too strong."

"It is not Mildred, my lady. It is I."

"Sybilla Silver!"

No words can describe the look of agony, of terror, of repulsion, that crossed my lady's face. She held up both hands with a gesture of loathing and horror.

"Keep off!" she cried. "You murderess!"

"Yes," she cried, "that is the word—murderess!—for I murdered your daughter-in-law. You never liked her, you know, Lady Kingsland. Surely, then, when I stabbed her and threw her into the sea, I did you a good turn. Lie still, and listen to me. I have a long story to tell you, beginning with the astrologer's prediction."

With fiendish composure Sybilla repeated the story she had told Sir Everard, while Lady Kingsland lay paralyzed and listened.

The atrocious revelation ended, she looked at her prostrate foe with a diabolical smile.

"My oath is kept; the prediction is fulfilled. In a few hours the last of the Kingslands dies by the hand of the common hangman. I have told you all, and I dare you to injure one hair of my head. Within the hour my journey from England commences. Search for last year's snow, for last September's partridges, and when you find them you may hope to find Sybilla Silver. Burn the prediction, destroy my grandmother's portrait and lock of hair, so carefully hidden away for many years. Their work is done, and my vengeance is complete. Lady Kingsland, farewell!"

"Murderess!" spoke a deep and awful voice—"murderess! murderess!"

"Ah-h-h-h-h!"

With a shriek of wordless affright, Sybilla Silver leaped back, and stood cowering against the wall. For the dead had risen and stood before her. The phantom slowly advanced.

"Murderess, confess your guilt!"

"Mercy, mercy! mercy!" shrieked Sybilla Silver. "Spare me! Touch me not! Oh, God! what is this?"

"Confess!"

"I confess—I murdered you—I stabbed you! Sir Everard is innocent! Keep off! Mercy! mercy!"

With an unearthly scream, the horrified woman threw up both arms to keep off the awful vision, and fell forward in strong convulsions.

"Very well done," said Mr. Bryson, entering briskly. "I don't think we need any further proof of this lady's guilt. You have played ghost to some purpose, my dear Lady Kingsland. Come in, gentlemen. We'll have no trouble carrying off our prize."

He paused, and stepped back with a blanched face, for Lady Kingsland lay writhing in the last agony.

With a wild cry, Mildred threw herself on her knees by her mother's side.

"Mamma—dear mamma—don't look like that! Harriet is not dead. She is here alive. It was that dreadful woman who tried to kill her. Everard is innocent, as we knew he was. He will be here with us in a day or two."

The dying woman was conscious. Her eyes turned and fixed on Harriet. The white disguise had been thrown off. She came over to the bedside, pale and beautiful.

"Mother," she said, sweetly, "it is indeed I. Dear mother, bless me once."

"May God bless you and forgive me! Tell Everard—" She never finished the sentence. With the name of the son she idolized upon her lips, Lady Kingsland was dead.

Harriet's presence of mind did not forsake her. Reverently she kissed the dead face, closed the eyes, and rose.

"The dead are free from suffering. Our first duty is to the living. Take me to my husband!"

The constable lifted Sybilla unceremoniously.

The servants gathered outside the door gave way, and he placed her in the carriage which had conveyed them to the house.

Mr. Parmalee went with him, and Lady Kingsland and the lawyer took possession of the fly that stood waiting for Miss Silver.

A minute later and they were flying, swift as lash and shout could urge them, toward Worrel Jail.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

"AFTER STORM, THE SUNSHINE."

Earlier in the evening, when Harriet had told her story to Mr. Bryson, that gentleman had proceeded at once to the prison to inform the prisoner and the officials that the murdered lady was alive.

There he found the warden of the prison and the clergyman, listening with very perplexed faces to a story the prisoner was narrating.

"This is a most extraordinary revelation," the clergyman was saying. "I really don't know what to think."

"What is it?" asked Mr. Bryson.

"A story which, wildly incredible as it seems, is yet true as Holy Writ," answered the prisoner. "The real murderer is found. She has been here, and admitted her guilt."

"What!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Sybilla Silver?"

"Why!" cried the warden, in wonder, "you, too?"

"Exactly," said Mr. Bryson, with a nod. "I know all about it. A most important witness has turned up—no other than the missing man, Mr. Parmalee. He saw the deed done—saw Sybilla Silver, dressed in Sir Everard's clothes, do it, and has come all the way from America to testify against her. Sir Everard, my dear friend, from the bottom of my soul I congratulate you on your most blessed escape!"

"Thank you!" he said. "If my life is spared, it is for some good end, no doubt. Thank God! A felon's death would have been very bitter, and for my mother's sake I rejoice."

"Not for your own?"

"I have lost all that made life sweet. My wife is in heaven. For me earth holds nothing but penitence and remorse."

"I am not so sure about that. I have better news for you even than the news I have told. My dear friend, can you bear a great shock—a shock of joy?"

He sprung up in bed, electrified.

"Speak!" he gasped. "Oh, for God's sake——"

"Your wife is alive!"

There was a simultaneous cry.

Mr. Bryson hurried on rapidly:

"Sybilla Silver stabbed her, and threw her over upon the shore. Mr. Parmalee picked her up—not dead, but badly wounded—took her on board a vessel—took her finally to America. Sybilla Silver deceived your poor wife as she deceived us all. Lady Kingsland thought it was you, Sir Everard. But she is alive and well, and in Worrel at this very moment. Our first business is to cage our bird before she flies. Can you aid us any, Sir Everard? Where are we most likely to find her?"

"At the Court," the baronet answered. "She left here to go there—to kill my mother with her horrible news, if she could."

"We will leave you now," Mr. Bryson said, rising. "Come, gentlemen; Sir Everard wants to be alone. I am off to secure my prisoner."

It was on his way back to his own house that Mr. Bryson lighted on his ghostly plan for frightening Sybilla. How well it succeeded you know.

She was still insensible when they reached the prison, and was handed over to the proper authorities. Harriet turned her imploring face toward the lawyer.

"Let me go to my husband! Oh, dear Mr. Bryson, let me go at once!"

They led her to the door. The jailer admitted her and closed it again. She was in her husband's prison-cell. Her arms were around his neck, her tears, her kisses raining on his face.

"Oh, my darling, my darling! my life, my love, my husband!"

"Harriet!"

With a great cry he rose and held her to his heart.

"My wife, my wife!"

And then, weak with long illness and repeated shocks—this last, greatest shock of all—he sat down, faint unto death.

"Oh, my love, my wife! to think that I should hold you once more in my arms, look once more into your living face! My wife, my wife! How cruel, how merciless I have been to you! May God forgive me! I will forgive myself—never!"

"Not one word! Between us there can be no such thing as forgiveness. We could neither of us have acted other than as we did. My oath bound me—your honor was at stake. We have both suffered—Heaven only knows how deeply. But it is past now. Nothing in this lower world shall ever come between us again, my beloved!"

"Not even death," he said, folding her close to his heart.

One month after and Sir Everard Kingsland, his wife, and sister quitted England for the Continent, not to make the grand tour and return, but to reside for years. England was too full of painful memories; under the sunlit skies of beautiful Italy they were going to forget.

Sybilla Silver was dead. All her plans had failed—her oath of vengeance was broken. Sir Everard and his bride were triumphant. She had failed—miserably failed; she thought of it until she went mad—stark, staring mad. Her piercing shrieks rang through the stony prison all day and all night long, until one night, in a paroxysm of frenzy, she had dashed her head against the wall. They found her, in the morning, dead.

* * * * *

Out into the lazy June sunshine the steamer glided. With his handsome wife on his arm, the young baronet stood looking his last at his native land, his face infinitely happy.

"For years," he said, with a smile—"for life, perhaps, Harriet. I feel as if I never wished to return."

"But we shall," she said. "England is home. A few happy years in fair foreign lands, and then, Everard, back to the old land. But first, I confess, I should like again to see America, and Uncle Denover, and"—with a little laugh—"George Washington Parmalee."

For Mr. Parmalee had gone back to Dobbsville, at peace with all the world, Sir Everard Kingsland included.

"You're a brick, baronet," his parting speech had been, as he wrung that young man's hand; "you air, I swan! And your wife's another! Long may you wave!"

Sir Everard laughed aloud now at the recollection.

"Money can never repay our obligation to that worthy artist. May his shadow never be less! We shall go over to Dobbsville and see him, and have our pictures taken, next year. Look, Harriet! how the chalky cliffs are melting into the blue above! One parting peep at England, and so a long good-by to the old land!" he said, taking off his hat, and standing, radiant and happy, with the June sunlight on his handsome head.

THE END