An Uninvited Guest

He took the slender, white-robed figure in his arms, and kissed her as tenderly as a bridegroom of a week might have done. Lady Kingsland laughed a soft, tinkling little laugh.

"A month is quite long enough to be a prisoner, Jasper, even although a prisoner of state. And on my boy's christening fete--the son and heir I have desired so long--ah, surely a weaker mother than I might essay to quit her room."

The moody darkness, like a palpable frown, swept over the baronet's face again at her words.

"Is he dressed?" he asked.

"He is dressed and asleep, and Lady Helen and Mr. Carlyon, his godmother and godfather, are hovering over the crib like twin guardian angels. And Mildred sits en grande tenue on her cricket, in a speechless trance of delight, and nurse rustles about in her new silk gown and white lace cap with an air of importance and self-complacency almost indescribable. The domestic picture only wants papa and mamma to make it complete."

She laughed as she spoke, a little sarcastically; but Sir Jasper's attempt even to smile was a ghastly failure.

Lady Kingsland folded both her hands on his shoulder, and looked up in his face with anxious, searching eyes.

"What is it?" she asked.

The baronet laughed uneasily.

"What is what?"

"This gloom, this depression, this dark, mysterious moodiness. Jasper, what has changed you of late?"

"Mysterious moodiness! changed me of late! Nonsense, Olivia! I don't know what you mean."