She glared helplessly up from the pillow. A
deep, stern, terrible "Amen!" came from her daughter's lips; then, with
a spasm, she half leaped from the bed, and fell back with a gurgling
cry--dead!

"She is gone!" said the rector, with a shudder. "Heaven have mercy on
her sinful soul!"

The baronet staggered back from the bed.

"I never saw a more horrible sight!" continued the Reverend Cyrus. "I
never heard such horrible words! No wonder it has unmanned you, Sir
Jasper. Pray sit down and drink this."

He held out a glass of water. Sir Jasper seized and drank it, his
brain reeling.

With stoical calm, Zara had arisen and closed the dead woman's eyes,
folded the hands, straightened the stiffening limbs, and composed the
humble covering. She had no tears, she uttered no cry--her face was
stern as stone.

"Better stay in this ghastly place no longer, Sir Jasper," the rector
suggested. "You look completely overcome. I will see that everything
is properly done. We will bury her to-morrow."

As a man walks in a dreadful dream, Sir Jasper arose, quitted the room,
mounted his horse, and rode away.

One dark, menacing glance Zara shot after him; then she sat stonily
down by her dead. All that night, all next day, Zara kept her post,
neither eating, nor drinking, nor sleeping. Dry and tearless, the
burning black eyes fixed themselves on the dead face, and never left it.

When they put the dead woman in the rude board coffin, she offered no
resistance. Calmly she watched them screw the lid down--calmly she saw
them raise it on their shoulders and bear it away. Without a word or
tear she arose, folded her cloak about her, and followed them to the
church-yard.

One by one the stragglers departed, and Zara was left alone by the
new-made grave. No, not quite alone, for through the bleak twilight
fluttered the tall, dark figure of a man toward her. She lifted her
gloomy eyes and recognized him.

"You come, Sir Jasper," she said, slowly, "to see the last of your
work. You come to gloat over your dead victim, and exult that she is
out of your way. But I tell you to beware! Zenith in her grave will
be a thousand times more terrible to you than Zenith ever was alive!"

The baronet looked at her with a darkly troubled face.

"Why do you hate me so?" he said. "Whatever wrong I did her, I never
wronged you."

"You have done me deadly wrong! My mother's wrongs are mine, and here,
by her grave, I vow vengea