e the bare suspicion agony. But a moment after, and with a sudden
impulse of generous love, he recoiled from his own thoughts.

"I am a wretch," he thought, "a traitor to the best and most beautiful
of brides, to harbor such an unworthy idea! What! shall I doubt my
darling girl because Sybilla Silver thinks she recognized that
portrait, or because an inquisitive stranger chooses to ask questions?
No! I could stake my life on her perfect truth--my own dear wife."

Impulsively he turned to go; at once he must seek her, and set every
doubt at rest. He ascended rapidly to her room and softly tapped at
the door. There was no answer. He knocked again; still no response.
He turned the handle and went in.

She was asleep. Lying on a sofa, among a heap of pillows, arrayed in a
white dressing-gown, her profuse dark hair all loose and disordered,
Lady Kingsland lay, so profoundly sleeping that her husband's knocking
had not disturbed her. Her face was as white as her robe, and her
eyelashes were wet, as though she had cried herself to sleep like a
child.

"My love! my darling!" He knelt beside her and kissed her
passionately. "And to think that for one second I was base enough to
doubt you! My beautiful, innocent darling, slumbering here, like a
very child! No earthly power shall ever sunder you and me!"

A pair of deriding black eyes flashed upon him through the partly open
door--a pair of greedy ears drank in the softly murmured words.
Sybilla Silver, hastening along with the artist's little note, had
caught sight of the baronet entering his wife's room. She tapped
discreetly at the door, with the twisted note held conspicuously in her
hand.

Sir Everard arose and opened it, and Miss Silver's sudden recoil was
the perfection of confusion and surprise.

"I beg your pardon, Sir Everard. My lady is--is she not here?"

"Lady Kingsland is asleep. Do you wish to deliver that note?"

With a second gesture of seeming confusion, Sybilla hid the hand which
held it in the folds of her dress.

"Yes--no--it doesn't matter. It can wait, I dare say. He didn't
mention being in a hurry."

"He! Of whom are you speaking, Sybilla?"

"I--I chanced to pass through the picture-gallery five minutes ago, Sir
Everard, and Mr. Parmalee asked me to do him the favor of handing this
note to my lady."

Sir Everard Kingsland's face was the face of a man utterly confounded.

"Mr. Parmalee asked you to deliver that note to Lady