p is very good. Has your carriage gone? I will order out
the pony-phaeton, if you like."

Ten minutes later the two gentlemen were bowling along the pleasant
country road leading to the Court. It was a very silent drive, for the
baronet sat moodily staring at vacancy, his mouth set in hard, wordless
pain.

"They will tell Olivia," he was thinking, gloomily. "What will she say
to all this?"

But his fears seemed groundless. Lady Kingsland treated the matter
with cool indifference. To be sure, she had not heard quite all. A
madwoman had burst into the church, had terrified Lady Helen pretty
nearly to death with her crazy language, and had tried to tear away the
baby. That was the discreet story my lady heard, and which she was
disposed to treat with calm surprise. Baby was safe, and it had ended
in nothing; the madwoman was being properly cared for. Lady Kingsland
quietly dismissed the incident altogether before the end of dinner.

The hours of the evening wore on--very long hours to the lord of
Kingsland Court, seated at the head of his table, dispensing his
hospitalities and trying to listen to the long stories of Mr. Carlyon
and the rector.

It was worse in the drawing-room, with the lights and the music, and
his stately wife at the piano, and Lady Helen at his side, prattling
with little Mildred over a pile of engravings. All the time, in a
half-distracted sort of way, his thoughts were wandering to the
sexton's cottage and the woman dying therein--the woman he had thought
dead years ago--dying there in desolation and misery--and here the
hours seemed strung on roses.

It was all over at last. The guests were gone, the baby baronet slept
in his crib, and Lady Kingsland had gone to her chamber. But Sir
Jasper lingered still--wandering up and down the long drawing-room like
a restless ghost.

A clock on the mantel chimed twelve. Ere its last chime had sounded a
sleepy valet stood in the doorway.

"A messenger for you, Sir Jasper--sent by the Reverend Mr. Green.
Here--come in."

Thus invoked, Mr. Dawson entered, pulling his forelock.

"Parson, he sent me, zur. She be a-doying, she be."

He knew instantly who the man meant.

"And she wishes to see me?"

"She calls for you all the time, zur. She be a-doying uncommon hard.
Parson bid me come and tell 'ee."

"Very well, my man," the baronet said. "That will do. I will go at
once. Thomas, order my horse, and fetch my riding-cloak and glov