d for the answer. He put out his hand and drew her
close to him. "You were away a great deal longer," he said, looking down
at her fair, serious face. She could not reply. "Twelve years, is it
not?" he went on. "That's a long time out of one's life, Alice. I feel
myself an old man now."

"No, no, Caspar!" she said, tremulously.

"What was it all about, Alice? You know I never really understood it.
Can't you make me understand? Was it that I was simply unbearable? too
disagreeable to be put up with any longer."

"No, it was not that. I will speak the truth now, Caspar. I was
jealous--I thought you cared for Rosalind Romaine."

"But you know now--surely--that that was not true?"

"Could you swear it?" she asked, suddenly and sharply, with a quick look
into his face.

For a moment he was annoyed. Then his brow cleared, and he answered,
very gravely--

"I can and will, if you like. But I thought--having trusted me so
far--that you could trust me without an oath. Alice, I never loved any
woman but one: and that one was yourself. Have you been as true to me as
I have been to you?"

"I don't think I ever knew that I loved you until now," said Alice,
laying her head with a deep sigh upon her husband's breast.

"Love is not enough, though it is a great deal: do you trust me?"

"Implicitly--now that I have looked at you again."

Caspar gave a little laugh.

"Then I must never let you go away from me, or you will begin to
disbelieve in me," he said.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

TWELVE SILVER SPOONS.

Lady Alice was not long in finding out that Maurice Kenyon, her
husband's chief friend, was the man of whom Lesley had spoken in her
letters, and also the doctor who had interested her at the hospital. She
did not speak to Lesley about him: she took a little time to accustom
herself to her husband's circle before she made any remarks upon its
members. But she was shrewd enough to see very quickly that Mr. Kenyon
took even more interest in her daughter than in her husband, and from
Lesley's shy looks she fancied that the interest was reciprocated. She
had a twinge of regret for her favorite, Harry Duchesne, and then
consoled herself by saying that after all Lesley was too young to know
her own mind, and that probably she would change before she was
twenty-one.

She did not come particularly into contact with Maurice, however, until
the Sunday after she had taken up her abode in Woburn Place. And then
she saw a good de