wife acted as a
magic spell upon the baronet.

"Your mad intruders have startled us into forgetting everything else.
Proceed, nurse. Lady Helen, take my arm. Mr. Carlyon, see to Mildred.
The child looks frightened to death, and little wonder!"

"Little, indeed!" sighed Lady Helen. "I shall not recover from the
shock for a month. It was like a scene in a melodrama--like a chapter
of a sensation novel. And you know that dreadful creature, Sir Jasper?"

"I used to know her," the baronet said, with emphasis, "so many years
ago that I had almost forgotten she ever existed. She was always more
or less mad, I fancy, and it seems hereditary. Her daughter--if
daughter she be--seems as distraught as her mother."

"And her name, Sir Jasper? You called her by some name, I think."

"Zenith, I suppose. To tell the truth, Lady Helen, the woman is
neither more nor less than a gypsy fortune-teller crazed by a
villainous life and villainous liquor. But, for the sake of the days
gone by, when she was young and pretty and told my fortune, I think I
will go back and see what Mr. Green intends doing with her. Such crazy
vagrants should not be allowed to go at large."

The light tone was a ghastly failure, and the smile but a death's-head
grin. He placed Lady Helen in the carriage--Mr. Carlyon assisted the
nurse and little Mildred. Then Sir Jasper gave the order, "Home," and
the stately carriage of the Kingslands, with its emblazoned crest,
whirled away in a cloud of dust. For an instant he stood looking after
it.

"Curses on it!" he muttered between set teeth. "After all these years,
are those dead doings to be flung in my face? I thought her dead and
gone; and lo! in the hour of my triumph she rises as if from the grave
to confound me. Her daughter, too! I never knew she had a child!
Good heavens! how these wild oats we sow in youth flourish and multiply
with their bitter, bad fruit!"

He turned and strode into the vestry. On the floor the miserable woman
lay, her eyes closed, her jaw fallen. By her side, supporting her
head, the younger woman knelt, holding a glass of water to her lips.
The Reverend Cyrus Green stood gravely looking on.

"Is she dead?" Sir Jasper asked, in a hard voice.

It was to the clergyman he spoke, but the girl looked fiercely up, her
tones like a serpent's hiss.

"Not dead, Sir Jasper Kingsland! No thanks to you for it!
Murderer--as much a murderer as if you had cut her throat--loo