Lady Edith shuddered at the words, but Douglas North took the book and read the quaint verses with deep interest.
“‘And Douglas and his love shall know the bliss I was denied,’” he repeats, in a musing tone. “Well, Edith the prophecy comes true. We are indeed blest,” and he returns the volume to its proud owner with a sigh to the memory of his fated ancestor and the lovely lady whom he loved. “By the way,” he added, “I have never heard what became of that fair Lady Edith.”
“Oh,” says Lord Eustace, “she married an earl, as this musty chronicle relates; but it says, also, that she died three years after of a broken heart.”
“Eustace,” calls his uncle’s voice in the hall, “here is that box of new books you ordered from London.”
The book-worm rushes out in eager haste, and Douglas, drawing his wife to his heart, kisses off the dew of tears from her lashes.
“They are at rest after their blighted life,” he whispers, reverently.
“Sing for me, Douglas dear. Sing something sad, and sweet, and tender.”
A smile, half-sad, half-mischievous, dawned in his dark eyes as he touched the keys with skillful fingers, and sang with his heart in his voice the last verse of that sweet love song, over which he and Lady Edith had quarreled when we first saw them:
“When, Mary, thy love is at rest.
His harp all unstrung in thy bowers;