"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