“My darling, I have so much to tell you. They have told me such strange things to-day. Have you ever heard that strange tradition of the Chilton race--the Minstrel’s Curse?” “Yes,” she sobbed. “But, my own dear love, I pray you forgive me the doom I have brought upon you. Never until yesterday, was I told that strange story--yesterday when it was all too late.” Oh, the love and sorrow in the sad dark eyes looking into hers, they almost broke her heart. “Oh, my own love, how could I blame you?” whispered the dying man, “I would have given my life at any moment to win your heart. And it is mine, although I must leave you soon, for the doctor has told me, I cannot live until to-morrow’s sunset.” “Oh, no, no, no!” she sobbed, bitterly. “Be calm, Edith, for I have such good news for you. I, your beloved, have it in my power to end the curse that has darkened the lives of so many fair women of the Chilton race. Do you guess how?” She shook her golden head, gazing at him with dilated blue eyes. Smiling faintly at her wonder, he continued: “I want you to become my wife for the few hours I have to live. Will you, Edith?” It was too solemn an hour for girlish coquetry. Edith gave him a frank, sweet assent, and sealed it with a tender kiss. There was silence for awhile--the eloquent silence of love--between them; then he spoke again: “But you have not asked me, Edith, how I have power to end the Minstrel’s Curse. Listen, dear. It is to be accomplished by your marriage with me.” “I do not understand,” Lady Edith answered, with puzzled eyes. “It is this way, my darling. You are the namesake and descendant of Lady Edith, the minstrel’s beautiful love of two centuries ago, and I am really and truly a descendant of the only brother of the minstrel, and namesake of----” “Douglas North!” she cried, in startled tones. “Yes, Edith, and ‘knew it not’ until to-day, when my uncle’s grief and repentance at my untimely end caused him to confess the truth to me. And ‘unknowing whence I came,’ I loved you, dearest, so it only remains for us to wed to fulfill the last clause of the doomed minstrel’s weird prophecy.” “Not the last,” she wept, sadly. “They were to be happy, you know.” “And shall we not be happy, dearest? You on earth rejoicing that you have delivered future generations of the great Chilton race from that dread curse, and I--happy”--his voice broke slightly--“in heaven.” Lord Eustace came over to them, grave, tender, thoughtful. “They have told me everything, my poor Douglas;” he bent compassionately over the sufferer. “The earl will give his consent, I know. I am going to him now. I will leave my sister to nurse you.”