Cruel As The Grave

"The awful winter passed away.

"But on one stormy night in March, the mansion house took fire. It was

said that the haunted master of the house, in a fit of desperation,

actually set it on fire, with the purpose of burning out the ghost. At

all events, it seems certain that he would permit nothing to be done to

stop the flames.

"The house was burned to the ground. The houseless master took refuge

with Father Ingleman, in the priest's dwelling by the church. But there

also the spectre followed him, nor could all the exorcisms of Father

Ingleman with 'candle, bell, and book,' avail to lay the disturbed

spirit.

"Philip Dubarry, half a maniac by this time, sent away the priest,

pulled down the priest's house, and took up his abode in the body of the

church itself, which was thenceforward deserted by all others. But here

also the spectre was supposed to have followed him. At length he

disappeared. No one knew whither he went. Some said that he had gathered

together his money and departed for a foreign country; others, that he

had drowned himself in the Black River, though his body never was found.

Some said that he had cast himself down headlong from some mountain

crest, and his bones were bleaching in some inaccessible ravine; while

others, again, did not hesitate to say that the devil had flown away

with him bodily.

"The fate of the last of the Dubarrys is unknown. The estate, unclaimed,

is held in abeyance. The house, burned to the ground, has never been

restored. The church, thereafter known as the Haunted Chapel, has

crumbled into the ruin that you see. And such, dear Sybil, is the story

of the 'Fall of the Dubarrys.'"