“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.”
The earl did not refuse, you may be sure, and the next morning there was a quiet, solemn marriage in the sick-room, where Lady Edith Chilton gave heart and hand to Douglas North, and so ended the Minstrel’s Curse. Old Katharine was there, weeping for blended joy and sorrow—joy that the curse was void forever, sorrow that bonny Douglas North must die and leave his young bride desolate.
But physicians are not always infallible, or perhaps love has some potent power that can conquer death.
Douglas North did not die of the wound he had received from the unknown courtier. I will show you one more picture of his life ere I write that solemn word, the End.