“But, no, no--he will be shocked at the evil he has wrought, he will not venture back for long, long years. It has always been so, they say.” They listened eagerly, devouring every word, wondering if her strange story could be true. “You doubt me!” cried Maybelle, reading their faces. “Well, I am too weak to waste words trying to convince you. I can only tell what I know in the briefest fashion.” She rested a little while, then resumed her story: “This old man--this miser--has surely hidden his gold somewhere in this house, but he has not the power of speech, only of strange, demoniacal laughter. It is this way: Some night in wandering through the long corridor--always the long corridor--you come upon an old man chuckling, gibbering to himself. You stop, you stare in terror, and he spreads abroad his lean hands. You see grouped about him, as in a golden haze, open chests of golden coin--think of it, _great chests of gold!_--and the sight fires you with a mad longing to possess the treasure whose existence you thus discover. You gaze spell-bound, but the hideous old miser begins to laugh with hideous mirth, gloating over his wealth, till you fly in deadly terror from the scene. But, alas! only to return, goaded by an awful desire to search the old place over for the missing gold. You search in vain, and the old miser seems to gloat over your failures with his demon laughter; and then--then--the rage, the fear, the baffled desire for the treasure--seem to combine to drive one mad, so that this”--she shuddered as she pointed at Otho’s still form--“comes naturally as the awful _finale_. He--Otho--found it all out while seeking Floy, and persuaded me to come with him to seek for the chests of gold. Alas, alas!” and with a long, shuddering sigh she closed her eyes again. Alva stroked the dark tresses back from the damp brow, and they looked at each other, she and St. George, with wondering eyes that questioned: “Can this story be true?” The young man looked from the chamber of horror out at the quiet sunset skies, and it seemed to him incredible that such things could be. But in the face of all that had gone before, and of this present tragedy, he was not prepared to deny anything. He could only say to Alva: “It is a strange story.” Everything began to grow dark in the room before Maybelle spoke again. She looked wistfully at Beresford, sighing: “I do not wish to die now, though all the best things of life have slipped away from me. But--but I seem to be sinking away.” “Have you any last words--any wish?” he began. “Yes, one wish.” She seemed to forget Alva’s presence, or not to care. “Will you--kiss me--just once?--I have loved you so!” Her voice was pathetic in its hopeless yearning, and Alva motioned him to obey. She knew that noble little Floy would not grudge this one caress to her dying rival. So Beresford gave the one kiss that was a joyful memory in all Maybelle’s future years. For she did not die as she foreboded.