"Olivia!"
Lady Kingsland, kneeling in tearless grief by her husband's side, bent over him to catch the faint whisper.
"My dearest, I am here. What is it?"
"Where is Everard?"
Everard Kingsland, a fair-haired, blue-eyed, handsome boy, lifted his head from the opposite side. It was a handsome, high-bred face—the ancestral face of all the Kingslands—that of this twelve-year-old boy.
"Here, papa!"
"My boy! my boy! whom I have loved so well—whom I have shielded so tenderly. My precious, only son, I must leave you at last!"
The boy stifled a sob as he bent and kissed the ice-cold face. Young as he was, he had the gravity and self-repression of manhood already.
"I have loved you better than my own life," the faint, whispering voice went on. "I would have died to save you an hour of pain. I have kept the one secret of my life well—a secret that has blighted it before its time—but I can not face the dread unknown and bear my secret with me. On my death-bed I must tell all, and my darling boy must bear the blow."
Everard Kingsland listened to his father's huskily murmured words in boyish wonderment. What secret was he talking of? He glanced across at his mother, and saw her pale cheeks suddenly flushed and her calm eyes kindling.