of
the menacing epistle reached me from Harvey Gerard. In a postscript Lucy
added that Marmaduke was too ill to write. An hour later Mr. Long and I
set off to town, where we found the lad in a less morbid state than we
had expected. He had asked, and gained, Harvey Gerard's permission to
marry his daughter, and the beautiful girl was supporting him with all
her strength.

The services of Townsend, the great Bow street runner, were called for;
but in spite of his endeavours, no solution was discovered to the
mystery of Sir Massingberd's disappearance. Fairburn Hall remained
without a master, occupied only by the servants.

At last Marmaduke came of age, and as he and Lucy were now man and wife,
it was decreed that they must return to the old home. Art changed that
sombre house into a comfortable and splendid mansion, and when Lucy
brought forth a son, the place seemed under a blessing, and no longer
under a curse. But it was not until the christening feast of the young
heir was celebrated with due honour that the secret of Sir Massingberd's
disappearance was discovered.

Some young boys, playing at hide-and-seek, were using the Wolsey oak for
"home," and, whilst waiting there, dug a hole with their knives, and
came upon a life-preserver that the baronet had always carried. Then a
keeper climbed the tree, and cried out that it was hollow, and there was
a skeleton inside.

"It's my belief," said the man, "that Sir Massingberd must have climbed
up into the fork to look about him for poachers, and that the wood gave
way beneath him, and let him down feet foremost into the trunk."

Later, as I looked upon the ghastly relics of humanity, the old gypsy's
curse recurred to my mind with dreadful distinctness. "May he perish,
inch by inch, within reach of the aid that shall never come, ere the God
of the poor take him into His hand."

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