A few months elapsed again, during which time matters went on much as usual, until an event happened that should have chased the darkest cloud of doubt and infidelity from the noble brow of the mighty and revered master of Dunfern Mansion. CHAPTER IX. The thickest stroke of sadness can be effaced in an instant, and substituted with deeper traces of joy. The heart of honest ages, though blackened at times with domestic troubles, rejoices when those troubles are surmounted with blessings which proclaim future happiness. On the tenth day of June, following Lady Dunfern's interview with her husband, she gave birth to a son and heir. This great event brought with it entire forgiveness on the part of Sir John of his wife's recent conduct. It served for a short time only, a trivial portion too, to stifle the alienation which existed between them, and to heal the sore of evident separation that marred their happiness for months before. The glad and happy father was only too eager now to snatch a smile from his wife's face, and anxious was he to bury any little obstacle that may have existed in the past, and expel it for ever from its lurking corner of tempting repose. He saw that Lady Dunfern's life was hanging by a flimsy hair, and who could, for an instant, depict the great despair of her husband when told that all hope must be abandoned! The frantic father wrung his hands in a frenzy of momentary madness, and in spite of authoritative advice he timidly moved in the direction of the bed on which his beloved lay, and knelt beside it to fervently offer up a prayer "for the speedy recovery of her who was the chief object of his existence." Raising himself up and clasping his darling in his arms, he whispered in her ear a word of encouragement, and gently laying her highly-heated head on the silken pillow he again prayed, in deepest and gravest earnestness, "that she might be spared only a little longer." No doubt his prayer was no sooner offered than answered, as she at this stage slightly rallied, and appeared somewhat strengthened. Day by day the still fond and loving husband sat by the bedside of the invalid until strong enough to battle fully against the weakening hand of her malady; and at the very time Sir John sat beside the bed of sickness, inwardly "showering blame upon himself for hindering his wife's social enjoyment, and for which he believed he acted wrongly;" she, on the contrary, was outwardly pouring rebuke on her own head "for ever entering into a league of life-long punishment by marrying a man she simply abhorred, and leaving her noble and well-learned tutor, Oscar Otwell, whom she yet loved, to wander in a world of blighted bliss!"