"I dare not! I would not have you suffer as I suffer."
"A moment ago you said I would laugh at it and you. Your terms are inconsistent, Sir Jasper."
"Spare me, Olivia!--I scarce know what I say--and do not be angry."
She drew her hands coldly and haughtily away from his grasp. She was a thoroughly proud woman, and his secrecy stung her.
"I am not angry, Sir Jasper. Keep your secret, if you will. I was foolish enough to fancy I had right to know of any danger that menaces my baby, but it appears I was mistaken. In half an hour the carriages will start for the church. You will find us all in the nursery."
She was sweeping proudly away in silent anger, but the baronet strode after her and caught her arm.
"You will know this!" he said, huskily. "Olivia, Olivia! you are cruel to yourself and to me, but you shall hear--part, at least. I warn you, however, you will be no happier for knowing."
"Go on," she said, steadily.
He turned from her, walked to the window, and kept his back to her while he spoke.
"You have no faith in fortune-tellers, clairvoyants, astrologers, and the like, have you, Olivia?"
"Most certainly not!"
"Then what I have to say will scarcely trouble you as it troubles me--for I believe; and the prediction of an astrologer has ruined my peace for the past month."
"Is that all? The mountain in labor has brought forth a mouse. My dear Sir Jasper, how can you be so simply credulous?"
"I knew you would laugh," said Sir Jasper, moodily; "I said so. But laugh if you can. I believe!"
"Was the prediction very terrible, then?" asked his wife, with a smile. "Pray tell me all about it."
"It was terrible," her husband replied, sternly. "The living horror it has cast over me might have told you that. Listen, Olivia! On that night of our baby boy's birth, after I left you and came here, I stood by this window and saw a spectral face gleaming through the glass. It was the face of a man--a belated wayfarer--who adjured me, in the Savior's name, to let him in."
"Well, you let him in, I suppose?"
"I let him in--a strange-looking object, Olivia, like no creature I ever saw before, with flowing beard and hair silver-white--"
"False, no doubt."
"He wore a long, disguising cloak and a skull-cap," went on Sir Jasper, "and his face was blanched to a dull dead white. He would have looked like a resuscitated corpse, only for a pair of burning black eyes."