'It is better that I should tell you at once,' said Harold, in a husky voice. 'All the money that I had is gone. I am almost a beggar. The friend whom I trusted....' He stopped for a few moments and then went on, 'I followed him--all this month until to-day I have been hunting after him; but he is gone, and all is gone; and I am come, Sir Philip, to release your daughter from her engagement, and to be gone also.' So saying Captain Bramston got up from the chair in which he had unconsciously seated himself, and stood with his head bent, and his eyes on the floor. Hilda broke into an irrepressible little laugh. 'How silly you are, Harold,' she said, 'to make so much fuss about a little money! Nobody paid us to fall in love with each other, and why should we be paid to be married?' Harold raised his face, now flushed to the roots of his hair, and his eyes burning. 'But what say you, Sir Philip?' he cried in a sharp, ringing voice. 'I say I should marry her, if I were in your place,' answered the Baronet, with humorous indifference; 'and the next time you get a fortune, take better care what you do with it. Meanwhile, shake hands, my dear boy; and let me observe that I'm uncommonly glad (and surprised) to see you.' 'Your happiness is near,' said Lady Kildhurm, who had entered the room so quietly that none of the three had noticed her. 'To-night the spell is broken. The saying shall be made perfect. It shall be well with you, and with me. To-morrow, early in the morning, search the Oak.' On that night all in the household were visited by strange dreams; and through the dreams they heard a sound of a voice chanting a weird song, and rising higher and clearer; until at last there came a deep booming sound like thunder: and after that the chant was heard no more. In the morning, early, Harold and Hilda went out, and walked arm-in-arm to the cliff where the Oak had stood. But lo! the Oak was gone. The overhanging promontory on which it grew had parted from the main land during the night, wrenching the mighty tree with it. But the ocean had received the tree in its arms, and had carried it away, never again to be seen by mortal eyes. For the waves had been the friends of the mysterious Oak from the beginning; and they had drawn a veil of solemn mystery over its end. But where was the ancient sibyl? She too had vanished, singing her wild chant; perhaps to find in another world the treasure whereof she had prophesied so long on this earth. At all events, no one ever saw her living or dead, after that night; and it came to be believed that she had been borne on her last journey amidst the branches of the tree which she had made her home.