it must never be possessed by any one after me.'

'But it might be stolen, father--stolen from your coffin.'

'That would indeed he a disaster,' he said with a shudder. Then a
look of deadly vengeance overspread his face and brought out all its
Romany characteristics as he said: 'But with it there will be buried
a curse written in Hebrew and English--a curse upon the despoiler,
which will frighten off any thief who is in his senses.'

And he showed me a large parchment scroll, folded exactly like a
title-deed, with the following curse and two verses from the 109th
Psalm written upon it in Hebrew and English. The English version
was carefully printed by himself in large letters:--

'He who shall violate this tomb.--he who shall steal this amulet,
hallowed as a love-token between me and my dead wife,--he who shall
dare to lay a sacrilegious hand upon this cross, stands cursed by
God. cursed by love, and cursed by me. Philip Aylwin, lying here.

"Let there be no man to pity him, nor to have compassion upon his
fatherless children.... Let his children be vagabonds, and beg
their bread; let them seek it also out of desolate places." Psalm
cix. So saith the Lord. Amen.'

'I have printed the English version in large letters,' he said, 'so
that any would-be despoiler must see it and read it at once by the
dimmest lantern light.'

'But, father,' I said, 'is it possible that you, an educated man,
really believe in the efficacy of a curse?'

'If the curse comes straight from the heart's core of a man, as this
curse comes from mine, Hal, how can it fail to operate by the mere
force of will? The curse of a man who loved as I love upon the wretch
who should violate a love-token so sacred as this--why, the
disembodied spirits of all who have loved and suffered would combine
to execute it!'

'Spirits!' I said. 'Really, father, in times like these to talk of
spirits!'

'Ah, Henry!' he replied, 'I was like you once. I could once be
content with Materialism--I could find it supportable once; but,
should you ever come to love as I have loved (and, for your own
happiness, child, I hope you never may), you will And that
Materialism is intolerable, is hell itself, to the heart that has
known a passion like mine. You will And that it is madness, Hal,
madness, to believe in the word "never"! you will And that you
_dare_ not leave untried any creed, howsoever wild, that offers
the heart a ray of hope. Every objec