Miss Silver Plays Her First Card

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?"