ieve Edith Bartlett was so foolish as the others."

After sundry ineffectual attempts at parting, she finally insisted
that we must say good night. I was about to imprint upon her lips the
positively last kiss, when she said, with an indescribable archness:--

"One thing troubles me. Are you sure that you quite forgive Edith
Bartlett for marrying any one else? The books that have come down to
us make out lovers of your time more jealous than fond, and that is
what makes me ask. It would be a great relief to me if I could feel
sure that you were not in the least jealous of my great-grandfather
for marrying your sweetheart. May I tell my great-grandmother's
picture when I go to my room that you quite forgive her for proving
false to you?"

Will the reader believe it, this coquettish quip, whether the speaker
herself had any idea of it or not, actually touched and with the
touching cured a preposterous ache of something like jealousy which I
had been vaguely conscious of ever since Mrs. Leete had told me of
Edith Bartlett's marriage. Even while I had been holding Edith
Bartlett's great-granddaughter in my arms, I had not, till this
moment, so illogical are some of our feelings, distinctly realized
that but for that marriage I could not have done so. The absurdity of
this frame of mind could only be equalled by the abruptness with which
it dissolved as Edith's roguish query cleared the fog from my
perceptions. I laughed as I kissed her.

"You may assure her of my entire forgiveness," I said, "although if it
had been any man but your great-grandfather whom she married, it would
have been a very different matter."

On reaching my chamber that night I did not open the musical telephone
that I might be lulled to sleep with soothing tunes, as had become my
habit. For once my thoughts made better music than even twentieth
century orchestras discourse, and it held me enchanted till well
toward morning, when I fell asleep.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"It's a little after the time you told me to wake you, sir. You did
not come out of it as quick as common, sir."

The voice was the voice of my man Sawyer. I started bolt upright in
bed and stared around. I was in my underground chamber. The mellow
light of the lamp which always burned in the room when I occupied it
illumined the familiar walls and furnishings. By my bedside, with the
glass of sherry in his hand which Dr. Pillsbury prescribed on first
rousing from a mesmeric sl