That was strange!"

"Olivia, it was astounding--incomprehensible! I should never have
credited one word he said but for that. He told me the past as I know
it myself. Events that transpired in a far foreign land a score of
years ago, known, as I thought, to no creature under heaven, he told me
of as if they had transpired yesterday. The very thoughts that I
thought in that by-gone time he revealed as if my heart lay open before
him. How, then, could I doubt? If he could lift the veil of the
irrevocable past, why not be able to lift the veil of the mysterious
future? He took the hour of our child's birth and ascended to the
battlements, and there, alone with the stars of heaven, he cast his
horoscope. Olivia, men in all ages have believed in this power of
astrology, and I believe as firmly as I believe in Heaven."

Lady Kingsland listened, and that quiet smile of half amusement, half
contempt never left her lips.

"And the horoscope proved a horrorscope, no doubt," she said, the smile
deepening. "You paid your astrologer handsomely, I presume, Sir
Jasper?"

"I gave him nothing. He would take nothing--not even a cup of water.
Of his own free will he cast the horoscope, and, without reward of any
kind, went his way when he had done."

"What did you say the name was?"

"Achmet the Astrologer."

"Melodramatic again! And now, Sir Jasper, what awful fate betides our
boy?"

"Ask me not! You do not believe. What the astrologer foretold I shall
tell no one."

"The carriage waits, my lady," a servant said, entering. "Lady Helen
bade me remind you, my lady, it is time to start for church."

Lady Kingsland hastily glanced at her watch.

"Why, so it is! I had nearly forgotten. Come, Sir Jasper, and forget
your fears on this happy day."

She led him from the room. Baby, in its christening-robes, slept in
nurse's arms, and Lady Helen and Mr. Carlyon stood impatiently waiting.

"We will certainly be late!" Lady Helen, who was god-mamma, said,
fussily. "Had we not better depart at once, Sir Jasper?"

"I am quite at your ladyship's service. We will not delay an instant
longer. Proceed, nurse."

Nurse, with her precious burden, went before. Sir Jasper drew Lady
Helen's arm within his own, and Mr. Carlyon followed with little
Mildred Kingsland.

Lady Kingsland watched the carriage out of sight, and then went slowly
and thoughtfully back to her room.

"How extremely foolish and weak of Sir Jasper,"