Sir Massingberd under his
roof.

The baronet, however, did appear towards twilight, and forced his way
into the house, where Harvey Gerard met him with great severity. Soon
hatred took the place of all other expressions on the baronet's face,
and he swore that he would see his nephew.

"That you shall not do, Sir Massingberd," said the gentleman. "If you
attempt to do so, my servants will put you out of the house by force."

"Before night, then, I shall send for him, and he shall be carried back
to Fairburn, to be nursed in his proper home."

"Nursed!" repeated Harvey Gerard hoarsely. "Nursed by the gravedigger!"

Sir Massingberd turned livid.

"To hear you talk one would think that I had tried to murder the boy,"
he said.

"I _know_ you did!" cried Harvey Gerard solemnly. "To-day you sent your
nephew forth upon that devil with a snaffle-bridle instead of a curb!
See, I track your thoughts like slime. Base ruffian, begone from beneath
this roof, false coward!"

Sir Massingberd started up like one stung by an adder.

"Yes, I say coward!" continued Harvey Gerard. "Heavens, that this
creature should still feel touch of shame! Be off, be off; molest not
anyone within this house at peril of your life! Murderer!"

For once Sir Massingberd had met his match--and more. He seized his hat,
and hurried from the room.

_III.--A Wife Undesired_

When Marmaduke recovered consciousness, twelve hours after his terrible
fall, he told me that he had been given a sign of his approaching
demise.

"I have seen a vision in the night," he said, "far too sweet and fair
not to have been sent from heaven itself. They say the Heaths have
always ghastly warnings when their hour is come; but this was surely a
gentle messenger."

"Your angel is Lucy Gerard," replied I quietly, "and we are at this
moment in her father's house."

He was silent for a time, with features as pale as the pillow on which
he lay; then he repeated her name as though it were a prayer.

"It would indeed be bitter for me to die _now_," he said.

I myself was stricken with love for Lucy Gerard, and would have laid
down my life to kiss her finger-tips. Nearly half a century has passed
over my head since the time of which I write, and yet, I swear to you,
my old heart glows again, and on my withered cheeks there comes a blush
as I call to mind the time when I first met that pure and lovely girl.
But from the moment that Marmaduke Heath spoke to me as he d