And then another thing, a fanciful yet not light dread, weighed upon me. When I sat in the sunshine on the bank of the river adjusting my baby's veil, laying it back from his sweet face, as he lay sleeping on my knee, with my ungloved hand, I shuddered at the sinister gleam of the diamond upon his innocent brow. My imagination was excited and restless; it did seem a sinister gleam as it flashed upon the innocent sleeper, and all the curse of the story returned to my mind, no more as a mere visionary legend, or a tale half believed, half smiled at, but as a real hereditary curse. Suppose I should die, and my husband marry some sweet loving wife, who would make up to him for all he had suffered with me--once I used to persuade myself that I would be glad of that--and my boy should have another brother, who was not his mother's son? When I took this possibility into my mind and pondered it, I almost thought, like the unhappy lady to whom it came first, that this fatal jewel blazed at me with malignant splendor like the eye of an evil spirit. No reasonings of mine could shake my terror of it. I was not wise enough, nor sufficiently courageous to banish this fanciful apprehension from my mind, and I trembled, and a cold dew of pain came upon my face as I thought of the lifelong enmity and strife which might be perpetuated in this child, doubly a Southcote as he was, and born in an atmosphere disturbed and clouded by the ceaseless discord of this race. This day I was seated at my usual post on a grassy bank near the river. Baby lay in my lap asleep, his rich veil laid back round the edge of his hat, showing his sweet innocent face in a nest of lace and ribbons, warm with the subdued sunshine which fell intensely on his white cloak and robes and upon me, but which I carefully held a little parasol to shield from his head. There was a slight fantastic breeze about, crisping the water, and blowing in small warm capricious gusts, now from one quarter, now from another. As usual, the river was bright with many passengers, and some pleasure-boats were setting out from our little bay, for there were now some London people in the village, which was a tiny watering-place in its quiet way. I had newly taken my seat, after a considerable walk, and was just drawing my glove from my hand to put back a stray morsel of the down which we called hair from baby's forehead. My hands were still thin, and my ring had always been loose on my finger; this time, as it happened, it came off with the glove, and a little gust of wind coming at the moment, my glove blew away from me as I pulled it off, and the ring fell and rolled glistening down over the knoll to the edge of the beach, where it lay among the pebbles, gleaming and sparkling like a living thing.