ng sunshine never
could have lighted it. That one radiant look would have told you how
he loved his wife.

"You, Olivia?" he cried, advancing. "Surely this is a surprise! My
dearest, is it quite prudent in you to leave your room?"

He took the slender, white-robed figure in his arms, and kissed her as
tenderly as a bridegroom of a week might have done. Lady Kingsland
laughed a soft, tinkling little laugh.

"A month is quite long enough to be a prisoner, Jasper, even although a
prisoner of state. And on my boy's christening fete--the son and heir
I have desired so long--ah, surely a weaker mother than I might essay
to quit her room."

The moody darkness, like a palpable frown, swept over the baronet's
face again at her words.

"Is he dressed?" he asked.

"He is dressed and asleep, and Lady Helen and Mr. Carlyon, his
godmother and godfather, are hovering over the crib like twin guardian
angels. And Mildred sits _en grande tenue_ on her cricket, in a
speechless trance of delight, and nurse rustles about in her new silk
gown and white lace cap with an air of importance and self-complacency
almost indescribable. The domestic picture only wants papa and mamma
to make it complete."

She laughed as she spoke, a little sarcastically; but Sir Jasper's
attempt even to smile was a ghastly failure.

Lady Kingsland folded both her hands on his shoulder, and looked up in
his face with anxious, searching eyes.

"What is it?" she asked.

The baronet laughed uneasily.

"What is what?"

"This gloom, this depression, this dark, mysterious moodiness. Jasper,
what has changed you of late?"

"Mysterious moodiness! changed me of late! Nonsense, Olivia! I don't
know what you mean."

Again he strove to laugh, and again it was a wretched failure.

Lady Kingsland's light-blue eyes never left his face.

"I think you do, Jasper. Since the night of our boy's birth you have
been another man. What is it?"

A spasm crossed the baronet's face; his lips twitched convulsively; his
face slowly changed to a gray, ashen pallor.

"What is it?" the lady slowly reiterated. "Surely my husband, after
all these years, has no secrets from me?"

The tender reproach of her tone, of her eyes, stung the husband, who
loved her, to the quick.

"For God's sake, Olivia, don't ask me!" he cried passionately. "It
would be sheerest nonsense in your eyes, I know. You would but laugh
at what half drives me mad!"

Jasper!"

"Don't lo