ssingberd turned livid, and twice in vain essayed to speak; he was
well-nigh strangled with passion. At last he caught Sinnamenta's Wrist
with fingers of steel.

"What man shall stop me from doing what I will with my own?" he cried.
"Come along with me, my pretty one!"

Stanley Carew flung himself upon him, knife in hand; but the others
plucked him backward, and Sir Massingberd signed to his wife to followed
him, and she obeyed. That night Stanley Carew was arrested on a false
charge of horse-stealing, and lying witnesses soon afterwards brought
him to the gallows.

"I know not what she suffered immediately after she was taken from us,"
concluded the old woman. "But this I have heard, that when he told her
of the death of Stanley Carew, she fell down like one dead, and
presently, being delivered of a son, the infant died after a few hours.
Yonder," she looked menacingly towards Fairburn Hall, "the mother
lives--a maniac. What else could keep me here in a place that tortures
me with memories of my youth, and of loving faces that have crumbled
into dust? What else but the hope of one day seeing my little sister
yet, and the vengeance of Heaven upon him who has worked her ruin? If
Massingberd Heath escape some awful end, there is no Avenger on high. I
am old, but I shall see it yet, I shall see it before I die."

_IV.--The Curse Fulfilled_

I returned to Fairburn, and soon Sir Massingberd, finding that all
correspondence with his nephew was interrupted by Harvey Gerard, began
to pay small attentions to my tutor and myself. At last he appeared at
the rectory, and desired me to forward a letter to Marmaduke.
This--finding nothing objectionable in the contents--I agreed to do, and
he departed, after inviting me to make use of his grounds whenever I
pleased. On the morrow I yielded to curiosity, and after wandering to
and fro in the park, came near a small stone house with unglazed,
iron-grated windows. A short, sharp shriek clove the humid air, and
approaching, I looked into a sitting-room, where an ancient female sat
eating a chicken without knife or fork. Her hair was scanty and white as
snow, but hung almost to the ground.

"Permit me to introduce myself," she said. "I am Sinnamenta, Lady Heath.
You are not Stanley Carew, are you? They told me that he was hung, but I
know better than that. To be hung for nothing must be a terrible thing;
but how much worse to be hung for love! It is not customary to watch a
lady