st with the words I must say unsaid. I have a legacy to leave thee,
my daughter."

"A legacy?"

The girl opened her great black eyes in wide surprise.

"Even so. Not of lands, or houses, or gold, or honors, but something a
thousand-fold greater--an inheritance of hatred and revenge!"

"My mother!"

"Listen to me, my daughter, and my dying malediction be upon thee if
thou fulfillest not the trust. Thou hast heard the name of Kingsland?"

"Ay, often; from my father ere he died--from thee, since. Was it not
his last command to me--this hatred of their evil race? Did I not
promise him on his death-bed, four years ago? Does my mother think I
forget?"

"That is my brave daughter. You know the cruel story of treachery and
wrong done thy grandmother, Zenith--you know the prediction your father
made to my father, Sir Jasper Kingsland, on the night of his son's
birth. Be it thine, my brave daughter, to see that prediction
fulfilled."

"You ask a terrible thing, my mother," she said, slowly; but I can
refuse you nothing, and I abhor them all. I promise--the prediction
shall be fulfilled!"

"My own! my own! That son is a boy of twelve now--be it yours to find
him, and work the retribution of the gods. Your grandmother, your
father, your mother, look to you from their graves for vengeance. Woe
to you if you fail!"

"I shall not fail!" the girl said, solemnly. "I can die, but I can not
break a promise. Vengeance shall fall, fierce and terrible, upon the
heir of Kingsland, and mine shall be the hand to inflict it. I swear
it by your death-bed, mother, and I will keep my oath!"

The mother pressed her hand. The film of death was in her eyes. She
strove to speak; there was a quick, dreadful convulsion, then an awful
calm.

Within the same hour, with miles between them, Sir Jasper Kingsland and
Zara, his outcast daughter, died.

* * * * * *

The dawn of another day crept silently over the Devon hill-tops as Lady
Kingsland arose from her husband's deathbed.

White, and stark, and rigid, the late lord of Kingsland Court lay in
the awful majesty of death.

The doctor, the rector, the nurse, sat, pale and somber watchers, in
the death-room. More than an hour before the youthful baronet had been
sent to his room, worn out with his night's watching.

It was the Reverend Cyrus Green who urged my lady now to follow him.

"You look utterly exhausted, my dear Lady Kingsland," he sa