id. "Pray
retire and endeavor to sleep. You are not able to endure such fatigue."

"I am worn out," she said. "I believe I will lie down, but I feel as
though I should never sleep again."

She quitted the room, but not to seek her own. Outside the
death-chamber she paused an instant, and her face lighted suddenly.

"Now is my time," she said, under her breath. "A few hours more and it
may be too late. His safe, he said--the secret spring!"

She flitted away, pallid and guilty looking, into Sir Jasper's study.
It was deserted, of course, and there in the corner stood the grim iron
safe.

"Now for the secrets of the dead! No fortune-telling jugglery shall
blight my darling boy's life while I can help it. He is as
superstitious as his father."

With considerable difficulty she opened the safe, pulled forth drawer
after drawer, until the grim iron back was exposed.

"The secret spring is here," she muttered. "Surely, surely, I can find
it."

For many minutes she searched in vain; then her glance fell on a tiny
steel knob inserted in a corner. She pressed this with all her might,
confident of success.

Nor was she deceived; the knob moved, the iron slid slowly back,
disclosing a tiny hidden drawer.

Lady Kingsland barely repressed a cry as she saw the paper, and by its
side something wrapped in silver tissue. Greedily she snatched both
out, pressed back the knob, locked the safe, stole out of the study and
up to her own room.

Panting with her haste, my lady sunk into a seat, with her treasures
eagerly clutched. A moment recovered her; then she took up the little
parcel wrapped in the silver paper.

"He said nothing of this," she thought. "What can it be?"

She tore off the wrapping. As it fell to the floor, a long tress of
silky black hair fell with it, and she held in her hand a miniature
painted on ivory. A girlish face of exquisite beauty, dusky as the
face of an Indian queen, looked up at her, fresh and bright as thirty
years before. No need to look at the words on the reverse--"My
peerless Zenith"--to know who it was; the wife's jealousy told her at
the first glance.

"And all these years he has kept this," she said, between her set
teeth, "while he pretended he loved only me! 'My peerless Zenith!'
Yes, she is beautiful as the fabled houris of the Mussulman's paradise.
Well, I will keep it in my turn. Who knows what end it may serve yet?"

She picked up the tress of hair, and envel