Countess Vera; or, The Oath of Vengeance. Alex. McVeigh Miller

shivers, and lifts her dark, foreboding eyes to his face.

      "Yes, father."

      "Bring me the Bible from yonder stand, dear. You must swear a solemn oath."

      The beautiful young face quivers with nameless dread and fear.

      "Oh, father," she prays, with lifted hands and streaming eyes, "leave it to Heaven!"

      The dark eyes, fast glazing over with the film of death, grow hard and stern.

      "Vera, child of my martyred wife, will you be false to your father's dying trust? Will you refuse to obey his dying commands?"

      "No, father, no," she weeps.

      "Then place your hand on this Bible, my darling."

      Silently she obeys him, the pale, chill light of the waning day glimmering in on her ghost-like, pallid face, and the dark eyes full of pain and despair.

      And the voice of the dying man rises strangely on the utter stillness.

      "Swear, Vera, swear by all your hopes of happiness, that you will punish Marcia Cleveland through her dearest affections, that at any cost to yourself you will avenge your mother's wrongs!"

      A gasp; the words die on Lady Vera's parched tongue.

      "Speak, my little countess. Repeat my words," he urges, anxiously.

      With a terrible effort she murmurs them over:

      "I swear, by all my hopes of happiness, that I will punish Marcia Cleveland through her dearest affections; that at any cost to myself I will avenge my mother's wrongs!"

      She glances down at the loved face for his smile of approval. An icy hand seems to clutch her heart. Her father has died as the last words left her lips—died with a smile of triumph on his marble-white face!

      One piercing cry of anguish, and the Countess of Fairvale falls lifeless across the still warm body of the dead.