LXXI. UNPREMEDITATED WORDS…

LXXI. UNPREMEDITATED WORDS

Lucy was in the drawing-room alone when Lionel entered it. "Lady Verner," she said to him, "has stepped out to speak to Jan."

"Lucy, I find that our coming here has turned you out of your room," he gravely said. "I should earnestly have protested against it, had I known what was going to be done."

"Should you?" said she, shaking her head quite saucily. "We should not have listened to you."

"We! Whom does the 'we' include?"

"Myself and Decima. We planned everything. I like the room I have now, quite as much as that. It is the room at the end, opposite the one Mrs. Verner is to have for her sitting-room."

"The sitting-room again! What shall you and Decima do without it?" exclaimed Lionel, looking as he felt--vexed.

"If we never have anything worse to put up with than the loss of a sitting-room that was nearly superfluous, we shall not grieve," answered Lucy, with a smile. "How did we do without it before--when you were getting better from that long illness? We had to do without it then."

"I think not, Lucy. So far as my memory serves me, you were sitting in it a great portion of your time--cheering me. I have not forgotten it, if you have."

Neither had she--by her heightened colour.

"I mean that we had to do without it for our own purposes, our drawings and our work. It is but a little matter, after all. I wish we could do more for you and Mrs. Verner. I wish," she added, her voice betraying her emotion, "that we could have prevented your being turned from Verner's Pride."

"Ay," he said, speaking with affected carelessness, and turning about an ornament in his fingers, which he had taken from the mantel-piece, "it is not an every-day calamity."

"What shall you do?" asked Lucy, going a little nearer to him, and dropping her voice to a tone of confidence.

"Do? In what way, Lucy?"

"Shall you be content to live on here with Lady Verner? Not seeking to retrieve your--your position in any way?"

"My living on here, Lucy, will be out of the question. That would never do, for more reasons than one."

Did Lucy Tempest divine what one of these reasons might be? She did not intend to look at him, but she caught his eyes in the pier-glass. Lionel smiled.

"I am thinking what a trouble you must find me--you and Decima."

She did not speak at first. Then she went quite close to him, her earnest, sympathising eyes cast up to his.

"If you please, you need not pretend to make light of it to me," she whispered. "I don't like you to think that I do not know all you must feel, and what a blow it is. I think I feel it quite as much as you can do--for your sake and for Mrs. Verner's. I lie awake at night, thinking of it; but I do not say so to Decima and Lady Verner. I make light of it to them, as you are making light of it to me."

"I know, I know!" he uttered in a tone that would have been a passionate one, but for its wailing despair. "My whole life, for a long while, has been one long scene of acting--to you. I dare not make it otherwise. There's no remedy for it."

She had not anticipated the outburst; she had simply wished to express her true feeling of sympathy for their great misfortunes, as she might have expressed it to any other gentleman who had been turned from his home with his wife. She could not bear for Lionel not to know that he had her deepest, her kindliest, her truest sympathy, and this had nothing to do with any secret feeling she might, or might not, entertain for him. Indeed, but for the unpleasant, latent consciousness of that very feeling, Lucy would have made her sympathy more demonstrative. The outbreak seemed to check her; to throw her friendship back upon herself; and she stood irresolute; but she was too single-minded, too full of nature's truth, to be angry with what had been a genuine outpouring of his inmost heart, drawn from him in a moment of irrepressible sorrow. Lionel let the ornament fall back on the mantel-piece, and turned to her, his manner changing. He took her hands, clasping them in one of his; he laid his other hand lightly on her fair young head, reverently as any old grandfather might have done.

"Lucy!--my dear friend!--you must not mistake me. There are times when some of the bitterness within me is drawn forth, and I say more than I ought: what I never should say, in a calmer moment. I wish I could talk to you; I wish I could give you the full confidence of all my sorrows, as I gave it you on another subject once before. I wish I could draw you to my side, as though you were my sister, or one of my dearest friends, and tell you of the great trouble at my heart. But it cannot be, I thank you, I thank you for your sympathy. I know that you would give me your friendship in all single-heartedness, as Decima might give it me; and it would be to me a green spot of brightness in life's arid desert. But the green spot might for me grow too bright, Lucy; and my only plan is to be wise in time, and to forego it."

"I did but mean to express my sorrow for you and Mrs. Verner," she timidly answered; "my sense of the calamity which has fallen upon you."

"Child, I know it; and I dare not say how I feel it; I dare not thank you as I ought. In truth it is a terrible calamity. All its consequences I cannot yet anticipate; but they may be worse than anybody suspects, or than I like to glance at. It is a deep and apparently an irremediable misfortune. I cannot but feel it keenly; and I feel it for my wife more than for myself. Now and then, something like a glimpse of consolation shows itself--that it has not been brought on by any fault of mine; and that, humanly speaking, I have done nothing to deserve it."

"Mr. Cust used to tell us that however dark a misfortune might be, however hopeless even, there was sure to be a way of looking at it, by which we might see that it might have been darker," observed Lucy. "This would have been darker for you, had it proved to be Frederick Massingbird, instead of John; very sadly darker for Mrs. Verner."

"Ay; so far I cannot be too thankful," replied Lionel. The remembrance flashed over him of his wife's words that day--in her temper--she wished it had been Frederick. It appeared to be a wish that she had already thrown out frequently; not so much that she did wish it, as to annoy him.

"Mr. Cust used to tell us another thing," resumed Lucy, breaking the silence: "that these apparently hopeless misfortunes sometimes turn out to be great benefits in the end. Who knows but in a short time, through some magic or other, you and Mrs. Verner may be back at Verner's Pride? Would not that be happiness?"

"I don't know about happiness, Lucy; sometimes I feel tired of everything," he wearily answered. "As if I should like to run away for ever, and be at rest. My life at Verner's Pride was not a bed of rose-leaves."

He heard his mother's voice in the ante-room, and went forward to open the door for her. Lady Verner came in, followed by Jan. Jan was going to dine there; and Jan was actually in orthodox dinner costume. Decima had invited him, and Decima had told him to be sure to dress himself; that she wanted to make a little festival of the evening to welcome Lionel and his wife. So Jan remembered, and appeared in black. But the gloss of the whole was taken off by Jan having his shirt fastened down the front with pins, where the buttons ought to be. Brassy-looking, ugly, bent pins, as big as skewers, stuck in horizontally.

"Is that a new fashion coming in, Jan?" asked Lady Verner, pointing with some asperity to the pins.

"It's to be hoped not," replied Jan. "It took me five minutes to stick them in, and there's one of the pins running into my wrist now. It's a new shirt of mine come home, and they have forgotten the buttons. Miss Deb caught sight of it, when I went in to tell her I was coming here, and ran after me to the gate with a needle and thread, wanting to sew them on."

"Could you not have fastened it better than that, Jan?" asked Decima, smiling as she looked at the shirt.

"I don't see how," replied Jan. "Pins were the readiest to hand."

Sibylla had been keeping them waiting dinner. She came in now, radiant in smiles and in her gold combs. None, to look at her, would suppose she had that day lost a home. A servant appeared and announced dinner.

Lionel went up to Lady Verner. Whenever he dined there, unless there were other guests besides himself, he had been in the habit of taking her in to dinner. Lady Verner drew back.

"No, Lionel. I consider that you and I are both at home now. Take Miss Tempest."

He could only obey. He held out his arm to Lucy, and they went forward.

"Am I to take anybody?" inquired Jan.

That was just like Jan! Lady Verner pointed to Sibylla, and Jan marched off with her. Lady Verner and Decima followed.

"Not there, not there, Lucy," said Lady Verner, for Lucy was taking the place she was accustomed to, by Lady Verner. "Lionel, you will take the foot of the table now, and Lucy will sit by you."

Lady Verner was rather a stickler for etiquette, and at last they fell into their appointed places. Herself and Lionel opposite each other, Lucy and Decima on one side the table, Jan and Sibylla on the other.

"If I am to have you under my wing as a rule, Miss Lucy, take care that you behave yourself," nodded Lionel.

Lucy laughed, and the dinner proceeded. But there was very probably an undercurrent of consciousness in the heart of both--at any rate, there was in his--that it might have been more expedient, all things considered, that Lucy Tempest's place at dinner had not been fixed by the side of Lionel Verner.

Dinner was half over when Sibylla suddenly laid down her knife and fork, and burst into tears. They looked at her in consternation. Lionel rose.

"That horrid John Massingbird!" escaped her lips. "I always disliked him."

"Goodness!" uttered Jan, "I thought you were taken ill, Sibylla. What's the good of thinking about it?"

"According to you, there's no good in thinking of anything," tartly responded Sibylla. "You told me yesterday not to think about Fred, when I said I wished he had come back instead of John--if one must have come back."

"At any rate, don't think about unpleasant things now," was Jan's answer. "Eat your dinner."

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LXXII. JAN'S SAVINGS

Lionel Verner looked his situation full in the face. It was not a desirable one. When he had been turned out of Verner's Pride before, it is probable he had thought that about the extremity of all human calamity; but that, looking back upon it, appeared a position to be coveted, as compared with this. In point of fact it was. He was free then from pecuniary liabilities; he did not owe a shilling in the world; he had five hundred pounds in his pocket; nobody but himself to look to; and--he was a younger man. In the matter of years he was not so very much older now; but Lionel Verner, since his marriage, had bought some experience in human disappointment, and nothing ages a man's inward feelings like it.

He was now, with his wife, a burden upon his mother; a burden she could ill afford. Lady Verner was somewhat embarrassed in her own means, and she was preparing to reduce her establishment to the size that it used to be in her grumbling days. If Lionel had but been free! free from debt and difficulty! he would have gone out into the world and put his shoulder to the wheel.

Claims had poured in upon him without end. Besides the obligations he already knew of, not a day passed but the post brought him from London outstanding accounts, for debts contracted by his wife, with demands for their speedy settlement. Mr. Verner of Verner's Pride might not have been troubled with these accounts for years, had his wife so managed: but Mr. Verner, turned from Verner's Pride, a--it is an ugly word, but expressive of the truth--a pauper, found the demands come pouring thick and threefold upon his head. It was of no use to reproach Sibylla; of no use even to speak, save to ask "Is such-and-such a bill a just claim?" Any approach to such topics was the signal for an unseemly burst of passion on her part; or for a fit of hysterics, in which fashionable affectation Sibylla had lately become an adept. She tried Lionel terribly--worse than tongue can tell or pen can write. There was no social confidential intercourse. Lionel could not go to her for sympathy, for counsel, or for comfort. If he attempted to talk over any plans for the future, for the immediate future; what they could do, what they could not; what might be best, what worst; she met him with the frivolousness of a child, or with a sullen reproach that he "did nothing but worry her." For any purposes of companionship, his wife was a nonentity; far better that he had been without one. She made his whole life a penance; she betrayed the frivolous folly of her nature ten times a day; she betrayed her pettish temper, her want of self-control, dyeing Lionel's face of a blood-red. He felt ashamed for her; he felt doubly ashamed for himself--that his mother, that Lucy Tempest should at last become aware what sort of a wife he had taken to his bosom, what description of wedded life was his.

What was he to do for a living? The only thing that appeared to be open to him was to endeavour to get some sort of a situation, where, by means of the hands or the head, he might earn a competence. And yet, to do this, it was necessary to be free from the danger of arrest. He went about in dread of it. Were he to show himself in London he felt sure that not an hour would pass, but he would be sued and taken. If his country creditors accorded him forbearance, his town ones would not. Any fond hope that he had formerly entertained of studying for the Bar, was not available now. He had neither the means nor the time to give to it--the time for study ere remuneration should come. Occasionally a thought would cross him that some friend or other of his prosperity might procure for him a government situation. A consulship, or vice-consulship abroad, for instance. Any thing abroad. Not to avoid the payment of his creditors, for whether abroad or at home, Lionel would be sure to pay them, if by dint of pinching himself he could find the means; but that he might run away from home and mortification, take his wife and make the best of her. But consulships and other government appointments are more easily talked of than obtained; as any body who has tried for them under difficulties knows. Moreover, although Lionel had never taken a prominent part in politics, the Verner interest had always been given against the government party, then in power. He did not see his way at all clear before him; and he found that it was to be still further obstructed on another score.

After thinking and planning and plotting till his brain was nearly bewildered, he at length made up his mind to go to London, and see whether anything could be done. With regard to his creditors there, he must lay the state of the case frankly before them, and say: "Will you leave me my liberty, and wait? You will get nothing by putting me in prison, for I have no money of my own, and no friend to come forward and advance it to clear me. Give me time, accord me my liberty, and I will endeavour to pay you off by degrees." It was, at any rate, a straightforward mode of going to work, and Lionel determined to adopt it. Before mentioning it to his wife, he spoke to Lady Verner.

And then occurred the obstruction. Lady Verner, though she did not oppose the plan, declined to take charge of Sibylla, or to retain her in her house during Lionel's absence.

"I could not take her with me," said Lionel. "There would be more objections to it than one. In the first place, I have not the means; in the second--"

He came to an abrupt pause, and turned the words off. He had been about incautiously to say, "She would most likely, once in London, run me into deeper debt." But Lionel had kept the fact of her having run him into debt at all, a secret in his own breast. Whatever may have been his wife's faults and failings, he did not make it his business to proclaim them to the world. She proclaimed enough herself, to his grievous chagrin, without his helping to do it.

"Listen, Lionel," said Lady Verner. "You know what my feeling always was with regard to your wife. A closer intercourse has not tended to change that feeling, or to lessen my dislike of her. Now you must forgive my saying this; it is but a passing allusion. Stay on with me as long as you like; stay on for ever, if you will, and she shall stay; but if you leave, she must leave. I should be sorry to have her here, even for a week, without you. In fact, I would not."

"It would be quite impossible for me to take her to London," deliberated Lionel. "I can be there alone at a very trifling cost; but a lady involves so much expense. There must be lodgings, which are dear; and living, which is dear; and attendance; and--and--many other sources of outlay."

"And pray, what should you do, allowing that you went alone, without lodgings and living and attendance, and all the rest of it?" asked Lady Verner. "Take a room at one of their model lodging-houses, at half a crown a week, and live upon the London air?"

"Not very healthy air for fastidious lungs," observed Lionel, with a smile. "I don't quite know how I should manage for myself, mother; except that I should take care to condense my expenses into the very narrowest compass that man ever condensed them yet."

"Not you, Lionel. You were never taught that sort of close economy."

"True," he answered. "But the most efficient of all instructors has come to me now--necessity. I wish you would increase my gratitude and my obligation to you by allowing Sibylla to remain here. In a little time, if I have luck, I may make a home for her in London."

"Lionel, it cannot be," was the reply of Lady Verner. And he knew when she spoke in that quiet tone of emphasis, that it could not be. "Why should you go to London?" she resumed. "My opinion is that you will do no good by going; that it is a wild-goose scheme altogether which you have got in your head. I think I could tell you a better."

"What is yours?"

"Remain contentedly here with me until the return of Colonel Tempest. He may even now be on his road. He will no doubt be able to get you some civil appointment in one of the Presidencies; he has influence here with the people that have to do with India. That will be the best plan, Lionel. You are always wishing you could go abroad. Stay here quietly until he comes; I should like you to stay, and I will put up with your wife."

Some allusion, or allusions, in the words brought the flush to Lionel's cheeks. "I cannot reconcile it to my conscience, mother, to remain on here, a burden, upon your small income."

"But it is not a burden, Lionel," she said. "It is rather a help."

"How can that be?" he asked.

"So long as Jan pays."

"So long as Jan pays!" echoed Lionel, in astonishment. "Does Jan--pay?"

"Yes he does. I thought you knew it? Jan came here the day you arrived--don't you remember it, when he had the pins in his shirt? Decima had invited him to dinner, and he came in ten minutes before it, and called me out of the room here, where I was with Lucy. The first thing he did was to tumble into my lap a roll of bank-notes, which he had been to Heartburg to get. A hundred and forty pounds, it was; the result of his savings since he joined Dr. West in partnership. The next thing he said was that all his own share of the profits of the practice, he should bring to me to make up for the cost of you and Sibylla. Jan said he had proposed that you should go to him; but Sibylla would not consent to it."

Lionel's blood coursed on with a glow. Jan slaving and working for him!

"I never knew this," he cried.

"I am sure I thought you did," said Lady Verner. "I supposed it to have been a prearranged thing between you and Jan. Lionel," looking up into his face with an expression of care, and lowering her voice, "but for that hundred and forty pounds, I don't see how I could have gone on. You had been very liberal to me, but somehow debt upon debt seemed to come in, and I was growing quite embarrassed. Jan's money set me partially straight. My dear--as you see you are no 'burden,' as you call it, you will give up this London scheme, will you not, and remain on?"

"I suppose I must," mechanically answered Lionel, who seemed buried in thought.

He did suppose he must. He was literally without money, and his intention had been to ask the loan of a twenty-pound note from generous Jan, to carry him to London, and keep him there while he turned himself about, and saw what could be done. How could he ask Jan now? There was little doubt that Jan had left himself as void of ready cash as he, Lionel, was. Dr. West's was not a business where patients went and paid their guinea fee, two or three dozen patients a day. Dr. West (or Jan for him) had to doctor his patients for a year, and send in his modest bill at the end of it, very often waiting for another year before the bill was paid. Sibylla on his hands, and no money, he did not see how he was to get to London.

"But just think of it," resumed Lady Verner. "Jan's savings for nearly three years of practice to amount only to a hundred and forty pounds! I questioned him pretty sharply, asking him what on earth he could have done with his money, and he acknowledged that he had given a good deal away. He said Miss West had borrowed some, the doctor kept her so short; then Jan, it seems, forgot to put down the expenses of the horse to the general account, and that had to come out of his pocket. Another thing he acknowledged having done. When he finds the poor can't conveniently pay their bills, he crosses it off in the book, and furnishes the money himself. He has not common-sense, you know, Lionel; and never had."

Lionel caught up his hat, and went out in the moment's impulse, seeking Jan. Jan was in the surgery alone, making up pills, packing up medicines, answering callers; doing, in fact, Master Cheese's work. Master Cheese had a headache, and was groaning dismally in consequence in an arm-chair, in front of Miss Deb's sitting-room fire, and sipping some hot elder wine, with sippets of toast in it, which he had assured Miss Deb was a sovereign specific, though it might not be generally known, to keep off the sickness.

"Jan," said Lionel, going straight up, and grasping him by the hand; "what am I to say to you? I did not know, until ten minutes ago, what it is that you are doing for me."

Jan put down a pill-box he held, and looked at Lionel. "What am I doing for you?" he asked.

"I speak of this money that I find you have handed to my mother. Of the money you have undertaken to hand to her."

"Law, is that all?" said Jan, taking up the pill-box again, and biting one of the pills in two to test its quality. "I thought you were going to tell me I had sent you poison, or something; coming in like that."

"Jan, I can never repay you. The money I may, some time; I hope I shall: the debt of gratitude, never."

"There's nothing to repay," returned Jan, with composure. "As long as I have meat and drink and clothes, what do I want with extra money? You are heartily welcome to it, Lionel."

"You are working your days away, Jan, and for no benefit to yourself. I am reaping it."

"A man can but work," responded Jan. "I like work, for my part; I wouldn't be without it. If old West came home and said he'd take all the patients for a week, and give me a holiday, I should only set on and pound. Look here," pointing to the array on the counter, "I have done more work in two hours than Cheese gets through in a week."

Lionel could not help smiling. Jan went on--

"I don't work for the sake of accumulating money, but because work is life's business, and I like work for its own sake. If I got no money by it, I should work. Don't think about the money, Lionel. While it lay in that bank where was the use of it? Better for my mother to have it, than for me to be hoarding it."

"Jan, did it never strike you that it might be well to make some provision for contingencies? Old age, say; or sudden deprivation of strength, through accident or other cause? If you give away all you might save for yourself, what should you do were the evil day to come?"

Jan looked at his arms. "I am tolerably strong," said he; "feel me. My head's all right, and my limbs are all right. If I should be deprived of strength before my time, I dare say, God, in taking it, would find some means just to keep me from want."

The answer was delivered in the most straightforward simplicity. Lionel looked at him until his eyes grew moist.

"A pretty fellow I should be, to hoard up money while anybody else wanted it!" continued Jan. "You and Sibylla make yourselves comfortable, Lionel, that's all."

They were interrupted by the entrance of John Massingbird and his pipe. John appeared to find his time hang rather heavily on his hands: he could not say that work was the business of his life. He might be seen lounging about Deerham at all hours of the day and night, smoking and gossiping. Jan was often honoured with a visit. Mr. Massingbird of Verner's Pride was not a whit altered from Mr. Massingbird of nowhere: John favoured the tap-rooms as much as he had used to favour them.

"The very man I wanted to see!" cried he, giving Lionel a hearty slap on the shoulder. "I want to talk to you a bit on a matter of business. Will you come up to Verner's Pride?"

"When?" asked Lionel.

"This evening, if you will. Come to dinner: only our two selves."

"Very well," replied Lionel. And he went out of the surgery, leaving John Massingbird talking to his brother.

"On business," John Massingbird had said. Was it to ask him about the mesne profits?--when he could refund them?--to tell him he would be sued, unless he did refund them? Lionel did not know; but he had been expecting John Massingbird to take some such steps.

In going back home, choosing the near cross-field way, as Jan often did, Lionel suddenly came upon Mrs. Peckaby, seated on the stump of a tree, in a very disconsolate fashion. To witness her thus, off the watch for the white animal that might be arriving before her door, surprised Lionel.

"I'm a'most sick of it, sir," she said. "I'm sick to the heart with looking and watching. My brain gets weary and my eyes gets tired. The white quadruple don't come, and Peckaby, he's a-rowing at me everlastin'. I'm come out here for a bit o' peace."

"Don't you think it would be better to give the white donkey up for a bad job, Mrs. Peckaby?"

"Give it up!" she uttered, aghast. "Give up going to New Jerusalem on a white donkey! No, sir, that would be a misfortin' in life!"

Lionel smiled sadly as he left her.

"There are worse misfortunes in life, Mrs. Peckaby, than not going to New Jerusalem on a white donkey."

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LXXIII. A PROPOSAL

Lionel Verner was seated in the dining-room at Verner's Pride. Not its master. Its master, John Massingbird, was there, opposite to Lionel. They had just dined, and John was filling his short pipe as an accompaniment to his wine. During dinner, he had been regaling Lionel with choice anecdotes of his Australian life, laughing ever; but not a syllable had he broached yet about the "business" he had put forth as the plea for the invitation to Lionel to come. The anecdotes did not raise the social features of that far-off colony in Mr. Verner's estimation. But he laughed with John; laughed as merrily as his heavy heart would allow him.

It was quite a wintry day, telling of the passing autumn. The skies were leaden-gray; the dead leaves rustled on the paths; and the sighing wind swept through the trees with a mournful sound. Void of brightness, of hope, it all looked, as did Lionel Verner's fortunes. But a few short weeks ago he had been in John Massingbird's place, in the very chair that he now sat in, never thinking to be removed from it during life. And now!--what a change!

"Why don't you smoke, Lionel?" asked John, setting light to his pipe by the readiest way--that of thrusting it between the bars of the grate. "You did not care to smoke in the old days, I remember."

"I never cared for it," replied Lionel.

"I can tell you that you would have cared for it, had you been knocked about as I have. Tobacco's meat and drink to a fellow at the diggings; as it is to a sailor and a soldier."

"Not to all soldiers," observed Lionel. "My father never smoked an ounce of tobacco in his life. I have heard them say so. And he saw some service."

"Every man to his liking," returned John Massingbird. "Folks preach about tobacco being an acquired taste! It's all bosh. Babies come into the world with a liking for it, I know. Talking about your father, would you like to have that portrait of him that hangs in the large drawing-room? You can if you like. I'm sure you have more right to it than I."

"Thank you," replied Lionel. "I should very much like it, if you will give it me."

"What a fastidious chap you are, Lionel!" cried John Massingbird, pulling vigorously; for the pipe was turning refractory, and would not keep alight. "There are lots of things you have left behind you here, that I, in your place, should have marched off without asking."

"The things are yours. That portrait of my father belonged to my Uncle Stephen, and he made no exception in its favour when he willed Verner's Pride, and all it contained, away from me. In point of legal right, I was at liberty to touch nothing, beyond my personal effects."

"Liberty be hanged!" responded John. "You are over fastidious; always were. Your father was the same, I know; can see it in his likeness. I should say, by the look of that, he was too much of a gentleman for a soldier."

Lionel smiled. "Some of our soldiers are the most refined gentlemen in the world."

"I can't tell how they retain their refinement, then, amid the rough and ready of camp life. I know I lost all I had at the diggings."

Lionel laughed outright at the notion of John Massingbird's losing his refinement at the diggings. He never had any to lose. John joined in the laugh.

"Lionel, old boy, do you know I always liked you, with all your refinement; and it's a quality that never found great favour with me. I liked you better than I liked poor Fred; and that's the truth."

Lionel made no reply, and John Massingbird smoked for a few minutes in silence. Presently he began again.

"I say, what made you go and marry Sibylla?"

Lionel lifted his eyes. But John Massingbird resumed, before he had time to speak.

"She's not worth a button. Now you need not fly out, old chap. I am not passing my opinion on your wife; wouldn't presume to do such a thing; but on my cousin. Surely I may find fault with my cousin, if I like! Why did you marry her?"

"Why does anybody else marry?" returned Lionel.

"But why did you marry her? A sickly, fractious thing! I saw enough of her in the old days. There! be quiet! I have done. If it hadn't been for her, I'd have asked you to come here to your old home; you and I should jog along together first-rate. But Sibylla bars it. She may be a model of a wife; I don't insinuate to the contrary, take you note, Mr. Verner; but she's not exactly a model of temper, and Verner's Pride wouldn't be big enough to hold her and me. Would you have taken up your abode with me, had you been a free man?"

"I cannot tell," replied Lionel. "It is a question that cannot arise now."

"No. Sibylla stops it. What are you going to do with yourself?"

"That I cannot tell. I should like an appointment abroad, if I could get one. I did think of going to London, and looking about me a bit; but I am not sure that I shall do so just yet."

"I say, Lionel," resumed John Massingbird, sinking his voice, but speaking in a joking sort of way, "how do you mean to pay your debts? I hear you have a few."

"I have a good many, one way or another."

"Wipe them off," said John.

"I wish I could wipe them off."

"There's nothing more easy," returned John in his free manner. "Get the whitewash brush to work. The insolvent court has its friendly doors ever open."

The colour came into the face of Lionel. A Verner there! He quietly shook his head. "I dare say I shall find a way of paying some time, if the people will only wait."

"Sibylla helped you to a good part of the score, didn't she? People are saying so. Just like her!"

"When I complain of my wife, it will be quite time enough for other people to begin," said Lionel. "When I married Sibylla, I took her with her virtues and her faults; and I am quite ready to defend both."

"All right. I'd rather you had the right of defending them than I," said incorrigible John. "Look here, Lionel, I got you up here to-day to talk about the estate. Will you take the management of it?"

"Of this estate?" replied Lionel, scarcely understanding.

"Deuce a bit of any other could I offer you. Things are all at sixes and sevens already. They are chaos; they are purgatory. That's our word out yonder, Lionel, to express the ultimatum of badness. Matiss comes and bothers; the tenants, one and another, come and bother; Roy comes and bothers. What with it all, I'm fit to bar the outer doors. Roy, you know, thought I should put him into power again! No, no, Mr. Roy; Fred might have done it, but I never will. I have paid him well for the services he rendered me; but put him into power--no. Altogether, things are getting into inextricable confusion; I can't look to them, and I want a manager. Will you take it, Lionel? I'll give you five hundred a year."

The mention of the sum quite startled Lionel. It was far more than he should have supposed John Massingbird would offer to any manager. Matiss would do it for a fourth. Should he take it?

He sat, twirling his wine-glass in his fingers. There was a soreness of spirit to get over, and it could not be done all in a moment. To become a servant (indeed it was no better) on the land that had once been his; that ought to be his now, by the law of right--a servant to John Massingbird! Could he bend to it? John smoked, and sat watching him.

He thought of the position of his wife; he thought of the encumbrance on his mother: he thought of his brother Jan, and what he had done; he thought of his own very unsatisfactory prospects. Was this putting his shoulder to the wheel, as he had resolved to do, thus to hesitate on a quibble of pride? Down, down with his rebellious spirit! Let him be a man in the sight of Heaven!

He turned to John Massingbird, his brow clear, his eye serene. "I will take it, and thank you," he said in a steady, cheerful tone.

"Then let's have some grog on the strength of it," was that gentleman's answer. "Tynn says the worry nearly took my mother's life out of her during the time she managed the estate; and it would take it out of mine. If I kept it in my own hands, it would go to the dogs in a twelvemonth. And you'd not thank me for that, Lionel. You are the next heir."

"You may take a wife yet."

"A wife for me!" he shouted. "No, thank you. I know the value of 'em too well for that. Give me my liberty, and you may have the wives. Lionel, the office had better be in the study as it used to be: you can come up here of a day. I'll turn the drawing-room into my smoke-shop. If there are any leases or other deeds missing, you must get them drawn out again. I'm glad it's settled."

Lionel declined the grog; but he remained on, talking things over. John Massingbird sat in a cloud of smoke, drinking Lionel's share as well as his own, and listening to the rain, which had begun to patter against the window-panes.

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LXXIV. GOING TO NEW JERUSALEM ON A WHITE DONKEY

And now we must pay a visit to Mrs. Peckaby; for great events were happening to her on that night.

When Lionel met her in the day, seated on the stump, all disconsolate, she had thrown out a hint that Mr. Peckaby was not habitually in quite so social a mood as he might be. The fact was, Peckaby's patience had run out; and little wonder, either. The man's meals made ready for him in any careless way, often not made ready at all, and his wife spending her time in sighing, and moaning, and looking out for the white donkey! You, my readers, may deem this a rather far-fetched episode in the story; you may deem it next to impossible that any woman should be so ridiculously foolish, or could be so imposed upon; but I am only relating to you the strict truth. The facts occurred precisely as they are being narrated, and not long ago. I have neither added to the story nor taken from it.

Mrs. Peckaby finished out her sitting on the stump under the gray skies. The skies were grayer when she rose to go home. She found on her arrival that Peckaby had been in to his tea, that is, he had been in, hoping to partake of that social meal; but finding no preparation made for it, he had a little relieved his mind by pouring a pail of water over the kitchen fire, thereby putting the fire out and causing considerable damage to the fire-irons and appurtenances generally, which would cause Mrs. Peckaby some little work to remedy.

"The brute!" she ejaculated, putting her foot into the slop on the floor, and taking a general view of things. "Oh, if I was but off!"

"My patience, what a mess!" exclaimed Polly Dawson, who happened to be going by, and turned in for a gossip. "Whatever have done it?"

"Whatever have done it? why that wretch Peckaby," retorted the aggrieved wife. "Don't you never get married, Polly Dawson, if you want to keep on the right side of the men. They be the worst animals in all creation. Many a poor woman's life has been aggrivated out of her."

"If I do get married, I shan't begin the aggrivation by wanting to be off to them saints at New Jerusalem," impudently returned Polly Dawson.

Mrs. Peckaby received it meekly. What with the long-continued disappointment, the perpetual "aggrivations" of Peckaby, and the prospect of work before her, arising from the gratuitous pail of water, she was feeling unusually cowed down.

"I wish I was a hundred mile off," she cried. "Nobody's fate was never so hard as mine."

"It'll take you a good two hours to redd up," observed Polly Dawson. "I'd rather you had to do it nor me."

"I'd see it further--afore it should take me two hours--and Peckaby with it," retorted Mrs. Peckaby, reviving to a touch of temper. "I shall but give it a lick and a promise; just mop up the wet, and dry the grate, and get a bit of fire alight. T'other things may go."

Polly Dawson departed, and Mrs. Peckaby set to her work. By dint of some trouble, she contrived to obtain a cup of tea for herself after awhile, and then she sat on disconsolately as before. Night came on, and she had ample time to indulge her ruminations.

Peckaby had not been in. Mrs. Peckaby concluded he was solacing himself at that social rendezvous, the Plough and Harrow, and would come home in a state of beer. Between nine and ten he entered--hours were early in Deerham--and to Mrs. Peckaby's surprise, he was not only sober, but social.

"It have turned out a pouring wet night," cried he. And the mood was so unwonted, especially after the episode of the wet grate, that Mrs. Peckaby was astonished into answering pleasantly.

"Will ye have some bread and cheese?" asked she.

"I don't mind if I do. Chuff, he gave me a piece of his bread and bacon at eight o'clock, so I ain't over hungry."

Mrs. Peckaby brought forth the loaf and the cheese, and Peckaby cut himself some and ate it. Then he went upstairs. She stayed to put the eatables away, raked out the fire, and followed. Peckaby was already in bed. To get into it was not a very ceremonious proceeding with him, as it is not with many others. There was no superfluous attire to throw off, there was no hindering time with ablutions, there were no prayers. Mrs. Peckaby favoured the same convenient mode, and she had just put the candle out, when some noise struck upon her ear.

It came from the road outside. They slept back, the front room having been the one let to Brother Jarrum; but in those small houses, at that quiet hour noises in the road were heard as distinctly back as front. There was a sound of talking, and then came a modest knock at Peckaby's door.

Mrs. Peckaby went to the front room, opened the casement, and looked out. To say that her heart leaped into her mouth would be a most imperfect figure of speech to describe the state of feeling that rushed over her. In the rainy obscurity of the night she could discern something white drawn up to the door, and the figures of two men standing by it. The only wonder was that she did not leap out; she might have done it, had the window been large enough.

"Do Susan Peckaby live here?" inquired a gruff voice, that seemed as if it were muffled.

"Oh, dear good gentlemen, yes!" she responded, in a tremble of excitement. "Please what is it?"

"The white donkey's come to take her to New Jerusalem."

With a shrieking cry of joy that might have been heard all the way up Clay Lane, Mrs. Peckaby tore back to her chamber.

"Peckaby," she cried, "Peckaby, the thing's come at last! The blessed animal that's to bear me off. I always said it would."

Peckaby--probably from drowsiness--made no immediate response. Mrs. Peckaby stooped down to the low bed, and shook him well by the shoulder.

"It's the white quadruple, Peckaby, come at last!"

Peckaby growled out something that she was in a state of too great excitement to hear. She lighted the candle; she flung on some of the things she had taken off; she ran back to the front before they were fastened, lest the messengers, brute and human, should have departed, and put her head out at the casement again, all in the utmost fever of agitation.

"A minute or two yet, good gentlemen, please! I'm a'most ready. I'm a-waiting to get out my purple gownd."

"All right, missus," was the muffled answer.

The "purple gownd" was kept in this very ex-room of Brother Jarrum's hid in a safe place between some sheets of newspaper. Had Mrs. Peckaby kept it open to the view of Peckaby, there's no saying what grief the robe might not have come to, ere this. Peckaby, in his tantrums, would not have been likely to spare it. She put it on, and hooked it down the front, her trembling fingers scarcely able to accomplish it. That it was full loose for her she was prepared to find; she had grown thin with fretting. Then she put on a shawl; next, her bonnet; last some green leather gloves. The shawl was black, with worked coloured corners--a thin small shawl that hardly covered her shoulders; and the bonnet was a straw, trimmed with pink ribbons--the toilette which had long been prepared.

"Good-bye, Peckaby," said she, going in when she was ready, "You've said many a time as you wished I was off, and now you have got your wish. But I don't want to part nothing but friends."

"Good-bye," returned Peckaby, in a hearty tone, as he turned himself round on his bed. "Give my love to the saints."

To find him in this accommodating humour was more than she had bargained for. A doubt had crossed her sometimes, whether, when the white donkey did come, there might not arise a battle with Peckaby, ere she should get off. This apparently civil feeling on his part awoke a more social one on hers; and a qualm of conscience darted across her, suggesting that she might have made him a better wife had she been so disposed. "He might have shook hands with me," was her parting thought, as she unlocked the street door.

The donkey was waiting outside with all the patience for which donkeys are renowned. It had been drawn up under a sheltering ledge at a door or two's distance, to be out of the rain. Its two conductors were muffled up, as befitted the inclemency of the night, something like their voices appeared to have been. Mrs. Peckaby was not in her sober senses sufficiently to ask whether they were brothers from the New Jerusalem, or whether the style of costume they favoured might be the prevailing mode in that fashionable city; if so, it was decidedly more useful than elegant, consisting apparently of hop sacks, doubled over the head and over the back.

"Ready, missus?"

"I be quite ready," she answered, in a tremble of delight. "There ain't no saddle!" she called out, as the donkey was trotted forward.

"You won't want a saddle; these New Jerusalem animals bain't like the ord'nary uns. Jump on him, missus."

Mrs. Peckaby was so exceedingly tall, that she had not far to jump. She took her seat sideways, settled her gown, and laid hold of the bridle, which one of the men put into her hands. He turned the donkey round, and set it going with a smack; the other helped by crying "Gee-ho!"

Up Clay Lane she proceeded in triumph. The skies were dark, and the rain came soaking down; but Mrs. Peckaby's heart was too warm to dwell on any temporary inconvenience. If a thought crossed her mind that the beauty of the pink ribbons might be marred by the storm, so as somewhat to dim the glory of her entrance into the city and introduction to the saints, she drove it away again. Trouble had no admission in her present frame of mind. The gentlemen in the hop sacks continued to attend her; the one leading the donkey, the other walking behind and cheering the animal on with periodical gee-ho's.

"I suppose as it's a long way, sir?" asked Mrs. Peckaby, breaking the silence, and addressing the conductor.

"Middlin'," replied he.

"And how do we get over the sea, please, sir?" asked she again.

"The woyage is pervided for, missus," was the short and satisfactory response. "Brother Jarrum took care of that when he sent us."

Her heart went into a glow at the name. And them envious disbelievers in Deerham had cast all sorts of disparaging accusations to the brother, openly expressing their opinion that he had gone off purposely without her, and that she'd never hear of him again!

Arrived at the top of Clay Lane, the road was crossed, and the donkey was led down a turning towards the lands of Sir Rufus Hautley. It may have occurred to Mrs. Peckaby to wonder that the highway was not taken, instead of an unfrequented bye-path, that only led to fields and a wood; but, if so, she said nothing. Had the white donkey taken her to a gravel-pit, and pitched headlong in with her, she would have deemed, in her blind faith, that it was the right road to New Jerusalem.

A long way it was, over those wet fields. If the brothers and the donkey partook of the saintly nature of the inhabitants of Salt Lake City, possibly they did not find it a weary one. Mrs. Peckaby certainly did not. She was rapt in a glowing vision of the honours and delights that would welcome her at her journey's end;--so rapt, that she and the donkey had been for some little time in one of the narrow paths of the wood before she missed her two conductors.

It caused Mrs. Peckaby to pull the bridle, and cry "Wo-ho!" to the donkey. She had an idea that they might have struck into the wrong path, for this one appeared to be getting narrower and narrower. The wood was intersected with paths, but only a few of them led right through it. She pulled up, and turned her head the way she had come, but was unable to distinguish anything, save that she was in the heart of the wood.

"Be you behind, gentlemen?" she called out.

There was no reply. Mrs. Peckaby waited a bit, thinking they might have lagged unwittingly, and then called out again, with the like result.

"It's very curious!" thought Mrs. Peckaby.

She was certainly in a dilemma. Without her conductors, she knew no more how to get to New Jerusalem than she did how to get to the new moon. She might find her way through the wood, by one path or another; but, once on the other side, she had no idea which road to turn the donkey to--north, south, east, or west. She thought she would go back and look after them.

But there was some difficulty in doing this. The path had grown so narrow that the donkey could not easily be turned. She slipped off him, tied the bridle to a tree, and ran back as fast as the obscurity of the path allowed her, calling out to the gentlemen.

The more she ran and the more she called, the less did there appear to be anybody to respond to it. Utterly at a nonplus, she at length returned to the donkey--that is, to the spot, so far as she could judge, where she had left it. But the donkey was gone.

Was Mrs. Peckaby awake or asleep? Was the past blissful dream--when she was being borne in triumph to New Jerusalem--only an imaginary one? Was her present predicament real! Which was imagination and which was real? For the last hour she had been enjoying the realisation of all her hopes; now she seemed no nearer their fruition than she had been a year ago. The white donkey was gone, the conducting brothers were gone, and she was alone in the middle of a wood, two miles from home, on a wet night. Mrs. Peckaby had heard of enchantments, and began to think she must have been subjected to something of the sort.

She rubbed her eyes; she pinched her arms. Was she in her senses or not? Sure never was such a situation heard of! The cup of hope presented palpably to her lips, only to vanish again--she could not tell how--and leave no sign. A very disagreeable doubt--not yet a suspicion--began to dawn over Mrs. Peckaby. Had she been made the subject of a practical joke?

She might have flung the doubt from her, but for a distant sound that came faintly on her ears--the sound of covert laughter. Her doubt turned to conviction. Her face became hot; her heart, but for the anger at it, would have grown sick with the disappointment. Her conductors and the donkey were retreating, having played their joke out! Two certainties forced themselves upon her mind. One, that Peckaby and his friends had planned it; she felt sure now that the biggest of the "brothers" had been nobody but Chuff, the blacksmith: the other certainty was, that she should never be sent for to New Jerusalem in any way. Why it should have been, Mrs. Peckaby could not have told, then or afterwards; but the positive conviction that Brother Jarrum had been false, that the story of sending for her on a white donkey had only been invented to keep her quiet, fixed itself in her mind in that moment in the lonely wood. She sunk down amidst the trees and sobbed bitterly.

But all the tears combined that the world ever shed could not bring her nearer to New Jerusalem, or make her present situation better. After awhile she had the sense to remember that. She rose from the ground, turned her gown up over her shoulders, found her way out of the wood, and set off on her walk back again in a very humble frame of mind, arriving home as the clock was striking two.

She could make nobody hear. She knocked at the door, she knocked at the window, gently at first, then louder; she called and called, but there came no answer. Some of the neighbours, aroused by the unwonted disturbance, came peeping at their windows. At length Peckaby opened his; thrusting his head out at the very casement from which Mrs. Peckaby had beheld the deceitful vision earlier in the night.

"Who's there?" called out Peckaby.

"It's me, Peckaby," was the answer, delivered in a forlorn tone. "Come down and open the door."

"Who's 'me'?" asked Peckaby.

"It's me," repeated Mrs. Peckaby, looking up.

And what with her height and the low casement, their faces were really not many inches apart; but yet Peckaby appeared not to know her.

"You be off, will you!" retorted he. "A pretty thing if tramps be to come to decent folks' doors and knock 'em up like this. Who's door did you take it for?"

"It's me!" screamed Mrs. Peckaby. "Don't you know me? Come and undo the door, and let me come in. I be sopping."

"Know you! How should I know you? Who be you?"

"Good heavens, Peckaby! you must know me. Ain't I your wife?"

"My wife! Not a bit on't. You needn't come here with that gammon, missis, whoever you be. My wife's gone off to New Jerusalem on a white donkey."

He slammed to the casement. Mrs. Peckaby, what with the rain and what with the disappointment, burst into tears. In the same moment, sundry other casements opened, and all the heads in the vicinity--including the blacksmith Chuffs, and Mrs. Chuff's--were thrust out to condole with their neighbour, Mrs. Peckaby.

"Had she been and come back a'ready?" "Did she get tired of the saints so soon as this--or did they get tired of her?" "What sort of a city, was it?" "Which was most plentiful--geese or sage?" "How many wives, besides herself, had the gentleman that she chose?" "Who took care of the babies?" "Did they have many public dances?" "Was veils for the bonnets all the go?" "Was it a paradise or warn't it?" "And how was Brother Jarrum?"

Amongst the many questions asked, those came prominently, tingling on the ears of the unhappy Mrs. Peckaby. Too completely prostrate with events to retort, she suddenly let drop her gown, that she had kept so carefully turned, and clapped both her hands upon her face. Then came a real, genuine question from the next door casement--Mrs. Green's.

"Ain't that your plum-coloured gownd? What's come to it?"

Mrs. Peckaby, somewhat aroused, looked at the gown in haste. What had come to it? Patches of dead-white, looking not unlike paint, covered it about on all sides, especially behind. The shawl had caught some white, too, and the green leather gloves looked, inside, as though they had had a coat of whitewash put on them. Her beautiful gownd! laid by so long!--what on earth had ruined it like that?

Chuff, the blacksmith, gave a great grin from his window. "Sure that there donkey never was painted down white!" quoth he.

That it had been painted down white and with exceedingly wet paint too, there could be little doubt. Some poor donkey humble in his coat of gray, converted into a fine white animal for the occasion, by Peckaby and Chuff and their cronies. Mrs. Peckaby shrieked and sobbed with mortification, and drummed frantically on her house door. A chorus of laughter echoed from all sides, and Peckaby's casement flew open again.

"Will you stop that there knocking, then?" roared Peckaby, "Disturbing a man's night's rest."

"I will come in then, Peckaby," she stormed, plucking up a little spirit in her desperation. "I be your wife, you know I be, and I will come in."

"My good woman, what's took you?" cried Peckaby, in a tone of compassionating suavity. "You ain't no wife of mine. My wife's miles on her road by this time. She's off to New Jerusalem on a white donkey."

A new actor came up to the scene--no other than Jan Verner. Jan had been sitting up with some poor patient, and was now going home. To describe his surprise when he saw the windows alive with nightcapped heads, and Mrs. Peckaby in her dripping discomfort, in her paint, in her state altogether, outward and inward, would be a long task. Peckaby himself undertook the explanation, in which he was aided by Chuff; and Jan sat himself down on the public pump, and laughed till he was hoarse.

"Come, Peckaby, you'll let her in," cried he, before he went away.

"Let her in!" echoed Peckaby, "That would be a go, that would! What 'ud the saints say? They'd be for prosecuting of her for bigamy. If she's gone over to them, sir, she can't belong legal to me."

Jan laughed so that he had to hold his sides, and Mrs. Peckaby shrieked and sobbed. Chuff began calling out that the best remedy for white paint was turpentine.

"Coma along, Peckaby, and open the door," said Jan, rising. "She'll catch an illness if she stops here in her wet clothes, and I shall have a month's work, attending on her. Come!"

"Well, sir, to oblige you, I will," returned the man. "But let me ever catch her snivelling after them saints again, that's all! They should have her if they liked; I'd not."

"You hear, Mrs. Peckaby," said Jan in her ear. "I'd let the saints alone for the future, if I were you."

"I mean to, sir," she meekly answered, between her sobs.

Peckaby in his shirt and nightcap, opened the door, and she bounded in. The casements closed to the chorus of subsiding laughter, and the echoes of Jan's footsteps died away in the distance.

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LXXV. AN EXPLOSION OF SIBYLLA'S

Sibylla Verner sat at the window of her sitting-room in the twilight--a cold evening in early winter. Sibylla was in an explosive temper. It was nothing unusual for her to be in an explosive temper now; but she was in a worse than customary this evening. Sibylla felt the difference between Verner's Pride and Deerham Court. She lived but in excitement; she cared but for gaiety. In removing to Deerham Court she had gone readily, believing that she should there find a large portion of the gaiety she had been accustomed to at Verner's Pride; that she should, at any rate, be living with the appliances of wealth about her, and should go out a great deal with Lady Verner. She had not bargained for Lady Verner's establishment being reduced to simplicity and quietness, for her laying down her carriage and discharging her men-servants and selling her horses, and living again the life of a retired gentlewoman. Yet all these changes had come to pass, and Sibylla's inward spirit turned restive. She had everything that any reasonable mind could possibly desire, every comfort; but quiet comfort and Sibylla's taste did not accord. Her husband was out a great deal at Verner's Pride and on the estate. As he had resolved to do over John Massingbird's dinner-table, so he was doing--putting his shoulder to the wheel. He had never looked after things as he was looking now. To be the master of Verner's Pride was one thing, to be the hired manager of Verner's Pride was another; and Lionel found every hour of his time occupied. His was no eye-service; his conscience was engaged in his work and he did it efficiently.

Sibylla still sat at the window, looking out into the twilight. Decima stood near the fire in a thoughtful mood. Lucy was downstairs in the drawing-room at the piano. They could hear the faint echo of her soft playing as they sat there in silence. Sibylla was in no humour to talk: she had repulsed Decima rudely--or it may rather be said fractiously--when the latter had ventured on conversation. Lady Verner had gone out to dinner. The Countess of Elmsley had been there that day, and she had asked Lady Verner to go over in the evening and take a friendly dinner with her. "Bring any of them that you like with you," had been her careless words in parting. But Lady Verner had not chosen to take "any of them." She had dressed and driven off in the hired fly alone; and this it was that was exciting the anger of Sibylla. She thought Lady Verner might have taken her.

Lucy came in and knelt down on the rug before the fire, half shivering. "I am so cold!" she said. "Do you know what I did, Decima? I let the fire go out. Some time after Lady Verner went up to dress, I turned round and found the fire was out. My hands are quite numbed."

"You have gone on playing there without a fire!" cried Decima.

"I shall be warm again directly," said Lucy cheerily. "As I passed through the hall, the reflection of the blaze came out of the dining-room. We shall get warm there. Is your head still aching, Mrs. Verner?"

"It is always aching," snapped Sibylla.

Lucy, kind and gentle in spirit, unretorting, ever considerate for the misfortunes which had come upon Mrs. Verner, went to her side. "Shall I get you a little of your aromatic vinegar?" she asked.

"You need not trouble to get anything for me," was the ungracious answer.

Lucy, thus repulsed, stood in silence at the window. The window on this side of the house overlooked the road which led to Sir Rufus Hautley's. A carriage, apparently closely shut up, so far as she could see in the dusk, its coachman and footman attending it, was bowling rapidly down towards the village.

"There's Sir Rufus Hautley's carriage," said Lucy. "I suppose he is going out to dinner."

Decima drew to the window and looked out. The carriage came sweeping round the point, and turned on its road to the village, as they supposed. In the still silence of the room, they could hear its wheels on the frosty road, after they lost sight of it; could hear it bowl before their house and--pull up at the gates.

"It has stopped here!" exclaimed Lucy.

Decima moved quietly back to the fire and sat down. A fancy arose to Lucy that she, Decima, had turned unusually pale. Was it so?--or was it fancy? If it was fancy, why should the fancy have arisen? Ghastly pale her face certainly looked, as the blaze played upon it.

A few minutes, and one of the servants came in, handing a note to Decima.

"Bring lights," said Decima, in a low tone.

The lights were brought; and then Decima's agitation was apparent. Her hands shook as she broke the seal of the letter. Lucy gazed in surprise; Sibylla, somewhat aroused from her own grievances, in curiosity.

"Desire the carriage to wait," said Decima.

"It is waiting, Miss Decima. The servants said they had orders."

Decima crushed the note into her pocket as well as her shaking fingers would allow her, and left the room. What could have occurred, thus to agitate calm and stately Decima? Before Lucy and Mrs. Verner had recovered their surprise she was back again, dressed to go out.

"I am sorry to leave you so abruptly, as mamma is not here," she said. "I dare say Lionel will be in to dinner. If not, you must for once entertain each other."

"But where are you going?" cried Mrs. Verner.

"To Sir Rufus Hautley's. He wishes to see me."

"What does he want with you?" continued Sibylla.

"I do not know," replied Decima.

She quitted the room and went down to the carriage, which had waited for her. Mrs. Verner and Lucy heard it drive away again as quickly as it had driven up. As it turned the corner and pursued its way up the road, past the window they were looking from, but at some distance from it, they fancied they saw the form of Decima inside, looking out at them.

"Sir Rufus is taken ill," said old Catherine to them, by way of news. "The servants say that it's feared he won't live through the night. Mr. Jan is there, and Dr. Hayes."

"But what can he want with Miss Verner?" reiterated Sibylla.

Catherine shook her head. She had not the remotest idea.

Lionel Verner did not come in for dinner, and they descended to it without him. His non-appearance was no improvement to the temper of his wife. It had occurred lately that Lionel did not always get home to dinner.

Sometimes, when detained at Verner's Pride, he would take it with John Massingbird; if out on the estate, and unable to reach home in time, he would eat something when he came in. Her fractious state of mind did not tend to soothe the headache she had complained of earlier in the day. Every half-hour that passed without her husband's entrance, made her worse in all ways, head and temper; and about nine o'clock she went up to her sitting-room and lay down on the sofa, saying that her temples were splitting.

Lucy followed her. Lucy thought she must really be ill. She could not understand that any one should be so fractious, except from wearing pain. "I will bathe your temples," she gently said.

Sibylla did not appear to care whether her temples were bathed or not. Lucy got some water in a basin and two thin handkerchiefs, wringing out one and placing it on Mrs. Verner's head and forehead, kneeling to her task. That her temples were throbbing and her head hot, there was no question; the handkerchief was no sooner on, than it was warm, and Lucy had to exchange it for the other.

"It is Lionel's fault," suddenly burst forth Sibylla.

"His fault?" returned Lucy. "How can it be his fault?"

"What business has he to stop out?"

"But if he cannot help it?" returned Lucy. "The other evening, don't you remember, Mr. Verner said when he came in, that he could not help being late sometimes now?"

"You need not defend him," said Sibylla. "It seems to me that you are all ready to take his part against me."

Lucy made no reply. An assertion more unfounded could not have been spoken. At that moment the step of Lionel was heard on the stairs. He came in, looking jaded and tired.

"Up here this evening!" he exclaimed, laying down a paper or parchment which he had in his hand. "Catherine says my mother and Decima are out. Why, Sibylla, what is the matter?"

Sibylla dashed the handkerchief off her brow as he advanced to her, and rose up, speaking vehemently. The sight of her husband appeared to have brought the climax to her temper.

"Where have you been? Why were you not in to dinner?"

"I could not get home in time. I have been detained."

"It is false," she retorted, her blue eyes flashing fire. "Business, business! it is always your excuse now! You stay out for no good purpose."

The outbreak startled Lucy. She backed a few paces, looking scared.

"Sibylla!" was all the amazed reply returned by Lionel.

"You leave me here, hour after hour, to solitude and tears, while you are out, taking your pleasure! I have all the endurance of our position, and you the enjoyment."

He battled for a moment with his rising feelings; battled for calmness, for forbearance, for strength to bear. There were moments when he was tempted to answer her in her own spirit.

"Pleasure and I have not been very close friends of late, Sibylla," he gravely said. "None can know that better than you. My horse fell lame, and I have been leading him these last two hours. I have now to go to Verner's Pride. Something has arisen on which I must see Mr. Massingbird."

"It is false, it is false," reiterated Sibylla. "You are not going to Verner's Pride; you are not going to see Mr. Massingbird. You know best where you are going; but it is not there. It is the old story of Rachel Frost over again."

The words confounded Lionel; both that they were inexplicable and spoken in passion so vehement.

"What do you say about Rachel Frost?" he asked.

"You know what I say, and what I mean. When Deerham looked far and near for the man who did the injury to Rachel, they little thought they might have found him in Lionel Verner. Lucy Tempest, it is true. He----"

But Lionel had turned imperatively to Lucy, drawing her to the door, which he opened. It was no place for her, a discussion such as this.

"Will you be so kind as to go down and make me a cup of tea, Lucy?" he said, in a wonderfully calm tone, considering the provocation he was receiving. Then he closed the door on Lucy, and turned to his wife.

"Sibylla, allow me to request, nay, to insist, that when you have fault to find, or reproach to cast to me, you choose a moment when we are alone. If you have no care for what may be due to me and to yourself, you will do well to bear in mind that something is due to others. Now, then, tell me what you mean about Rachel Frost."

"I won't," said Sibylla. "You are killing me," and she burst into tears.

Oh, it was weary work!--weary work for him. Such a wife as this!

"In what way am I killing you?"

"Why do you leave me so much alone?"

"I have undertaken work, and I must do it. But, as to leaving you alone, when I am with you, you scarcely ever give me a civil word."

"You are leaving me now--you are wanting to go to Verner's Pride to-night," she reiterated with strange inconsistency, considering that she had just insinuated he did not want to go there.

"I must go there, Sibylla. I have told you why; and I have told you truth. Again I ask you what you meant about Rachel Frost."

Sibylla flung up her hands petulantly. "I won't tell you, I say. And you can't make me. I wish, I wish Fred had not died."

She turned round on the sofa and buried her face in the cushions. Lionel, true to the line of conduct he had carved out for himself, to give her all possible token of respect and affection ever, whatever might be her provocation--and all the more true to it from the very consciousness that the love of his inmost heart grew less hers, more another's, day by day, bent over her and spoke kindly. She flung back her hand in a repelling manner towards him, and maintained an obstinate silence. Lionel, sick and weary, at length withdrew, taking up the parchment.

How sick and weary, none, save himself, could know. Lucy Tempest had the tea before her, apparently ready, when he looked into the drawing-room.

"I am going on now to Verner's Pride, Lucy. You can tell my mother so, should she ask after me when she returns. I may be late."

"But you will take some tea, first?" cried Lucy, in a hasty tone. "You asked me to make it for you."

He knew he had--asked her as an excuse to get her from the room.

"I don't care for it," he wearily answered.

"I am sure you are tired," said Lucy. "When did you dine?"

"I have not dined. I have taken nothing since I left home this morning."

"Oh!" She was hastening to the bell. Lionel stopped her, laying his hand upon her arm.

"I could not eat it, Lucy. Just one cup of tea, if you will."

She, returned to the table, poured out the cup of tea, and he drank it standing.

"Shall I take Mrs. Verner up a cup?" asked Lucy. "Will she drink it, do you think?"

"Thank you, Lucy. It may do her head good. I think it aches much to-night."

He turned, and departed. Lucy noticed that he had left the parchment behind him, and ran after him with it, catching him as he was about to close the hall door. She knew that all such business-looking papers went up to Verner's Pride.

"Did you mean to leave it? Or have you forgotten it?"

He had forgotten it. He took it from her, retaining her hand for a moment. "Lucy, you will not misjudge me?" he said, in a strange tone of pain.

Lucy looked up at him with a bright smile and a very emphatic shake of the head. She knew by instinct that he alluded to the accusation of his wife, touching Rachel Frost. Lucy misjudge him!

"You should have waited to eat some dinner," she gaily said. "Take care you don't faint by the way, as that sick patient of Jan's did the other morning."

Lionel went on. At any rate there was peace outside, if not within; the peace of outward calm. He lifted his hat; he bared his brow, aching with its weight of trouble, to the clear night air; he wondered whether he should have this to bear his whole life long. At the moment of passing the outer gates, the carriage of Sir Rufus Hautley drew up, bearing Decima.

Lionel waited to receive her. He helped her out, and gave her his arm to the hall door. Decima walked with her head down.

"You are silent, Decima. Are you sad?"

"Yes," she answered. "Sir Rufus is dead."

"Dead!" echoed Lionel, in very astonishment, for he had heard nothing of the sudden illness.

"It is so," she replied, breaking into sobs. "Spasms at the heart, they say. Jan and Dr. Hayes were there, but they could not save him."

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LXXVI. AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL

Deborah and Amilly West were sitting over the fire In the growing dusk of a February evening. Their sewing lay on the table; some home dresses they were making for themselves, for they had never too much superfluous cash for dressmakers, with fashionable patterns and fashionable prices. It had grown too dark to work, and they had turned to the fire for a chat, before the tea came in, and the gas was lighted.

"I tell you, Amilly, it is of no use playing at concealment, or trying to suppress the truth," Deborah was saying. "She is as surely going as that the other two went; as sure as sure can be. I have always felt that she would go. Mr. Lionel was talking to me only yesterday. He was not satisfied with his brother; at least, he thought it as well to act as though he were not satisfied with him; and he was about to ask Dr. Hayes----"

Her voice died away. Master Cheese had come in with a doleful face.

"Miss Deb, I'm sent up to Deerham Hall. There's a bothering note come from Miss Hautley to Jan, about one of the servants, and he says I am to go up and see what it is."

"Well?" returned Miss Deb, wondering why Master Cheese should come in to give the information to her. "You couldn't expect Mr. Jan to go up, after being out all day, as he has."

"Folks are sure to go and fall ill at the most untoward hour of the twenty-four," grumbled Master Cheese. "I was just looking for a good tea. I feel as empty as possible, after my short dinner. I wish----"

"Short dinner!" echoed Miss Deb, in amazement; at least, it would have been in amazement, but that she was accustomed to these little episodes from the young gentleman. "We had a beautiful piece of roast beef; and I'm sure you ate as much as you chose!"

"There was no pudding or pie," resentfully retorted Master Cheese. "I have felt all the afternoon just as if I should sink; and I couldn't get out to buy anything for myself, because Jan never came in, and the boy stopped out. I wish, Miss Deb, you'd give me a thick piece of bread-and-jam, as I have to go off without my tea."

"The fact is, Master Cheese, you have the jam so often, in one way or another, that there's very little left. It will not last the season out."

"The green gooseberries'll be coming on, Miss Deb," was Master Cheese's insinuating reply. "And there's always apples, you know. With plenty of lemon and a clove or two, apples make as good a pudding as anything else."

Miss Deb, always good-natured, went to get him what he had asked for, and Master Cheese took his seat in front of the fire, and toasted his toes.

"There was a great mistake made when you were put to a surgeon," said Miss Amilly, laughing. "You should have gone apprentice to a pastry-cook."

"She's a regular fidgety old woman, that Miss Hautley," broke out Master Cheese with temper, passing over Miss Amilly's remark. "It's not two months yet that she has been at the Hall, and she has had one or the other of us up six times at least. I wonder what business she had to come to it? The Hall wouldn't have run away before Sir Edmund could get home."

Miss Deb came back with the bread-and-jam; a good thick slice, as the gentleman had requested. To look at him eating, one would think he had had nothing for a week. It disappeared in no time, and Master Cheese went out sucking his fingers and his lips. Deborah West folded up the work, and put things straight generally in the room. Then she sat down again, drawing her chair to the side of the fire.

"I do think that Cheese has got a wolf inside him," cried Amilly, with a laugh.

"He is a great gourmand. He said this morning----" began Miss Deb, and then she stopped.

Finding what she was about to say thus brought to an abrupt conclusion, Amilly West looked at her sister. Miss Deb's attention was riveted on the room door. Her mouth was open, her eyes seemed starting from her head with a fixed stare, and her countenance was growing white. Amilly turned her eyes hastily to the same direction, and saw a dark, obscure form filling up the doorway.

Not obscure for long. Amilly, more impulsive than her sister, rose up with a shriek, and darted forward with outstretched arms of welcome; Deborah followed, stretching out hers.

"My dear father!"

It was no other than Dr. West. He gave them each a cool kiss, walked to the fire and sat down, bidding them not smother him. For some little while they could not get over their surprise or believe their senses. They knew nothing of his intention to return, and had deemed him hundreds of miles away. Question after question they showered down upon him, the result of their amazement. He answered just as much as he chose. He had only come home for a day or so, he said, and did not care that it should be known he was there, to be tormented with a shoal of callers.

"Where's Mr. Jan?" asked he.

"In the surgery," said Deborah.

"Is he by himself?"

"Yes, dear papa. Master Cheese has just gone up to Deerham Hall, and the boy is out."

Dr. West rose, and made his way to the surgery. The surgery was empty. But the light of a fire from the half-opened door, led him to Jan's bedroom. It was a room that would persist in remaining obstinately damp, and Jan, albeit not over careful of himself, judged it well to have an occasional fire lighted. The room, seen by this light, looked comfortable. The small, low, iron bed stood in the far corner; in the opposite corner the bureau, as in Dr. West's time, the door opening to the garden (never used now) between them, at the end of the room. The window was on the side opposite the fire, a table in the middle. Jan was then occupied in stirring the fire into a blaze, and its cheerful light flickered on every part of the room.

"Good-evening, Mr. Jan."

Jan turned round, poker in hand, and stared amiably. "Law!" cried he. "Who'd have thought it?"

The old word; the word he had learned at school--law. It was Jan's favourite mode of expressing surprise still, and Lady Verner never could break him of it. He shook hands cordially with Dr. West.

The doctor shut the door, slipping the bolt, and sat down to the fire. Jan cleared a space on the table, which was covered with jars and glass vases, cylinders, and other apparatus, seemingly for chemical purposes, and took his seat there.

The doctor had taken a run home, "making a morning call, as it might be metaphorically observed," he said to Jan. Just to have a sight of home faces, and hear a little home news. Would Mr. Jan recite to him somewhat of the latter?

Jan did so; touching upon all he could recollect. From John Massingbird's return to Verner's Pride, and the consequent turning out of Mr. Verner and his wife, down to the death of Sir Rufus Hautley; not forgetting the pranks played by the "ghost," and the foiled expedition of Mrs. Peckaby to New Jerusalem. Some of these items of intelligence the doctor had heard before, for Jan periodically wrote to him. The doctor looked taller, and stouter, and redder than ever, and as he leaned thoughtfully forward, and the crimson blaze played upon his face, Jan thought how like he was growing to his sister, the late Mrs. Verner.

"Mr. Jan," said the doctor, "it is not right that my nephew, John Massingbird, should enjoy Verner's Pride."

"Of course it's not," answered Jan. "Only things don't go by rights always, you know. It's but seldom they do."

"He ought to give it up to Mr. Verner."

"So I told him," said Jan. "I should, in his place."

"What did he say?"

"Say? Laughed at me, and called me green."

Dr. West sat thoughtfully pulling his great dark whiskers. Dark as they were, they had yet a tinge of red in the fire-light. "It was a curious thing; a very curious thing, that both brothers should die, as was supposed, in Australia," said he. "Better--as things have turned out--that Fred should have turned up afterwards, than John."

"I don't know that," spoke Jan with his accustomed truth-telling freedom. "The pair were not good for much, but John was the best of them."

"I was thinking of Sibylla," candidly admitted the doctor. "It would have been better for her."

Jan opened his eyes considerably.

"Better for her!--for it to turn out that she had two husbands living? That's logic, that is."

"Dear me, to be sure!" cried the doctor. "I was not thinking of that phase of the affair, Mr. Jan. Is she in spirits?"

"Who? Sibylla? She's fretting herself into her grave."

Dr. West turned his head with a start. "What at? The loss of Verner's Pride?"

"Well, I don't know," said Jan, ever plain-spoken. "She puzzles me. When she was at Verner's Pride, she never seemed satisfied. She was perpetually hankering after excitement--didn't seem to care for Lionel, or for anybody else, and kept the house full of people from top to bottom. She has a restless, dissatisfied temper, and it keeps her on the worry. Folks with such tempers know no peace, and let nobody else know any that's about them. A nice life she leads Lionel! Not that he'd drop a hint of it. He'd cut out his tongue before he'd speak a word against his wife; he'd rather make her out to be an angel."

"Are they pretty comfortably off for money?" inquired Dr. West, after a pause. "I suppose Mr. Verner must have managed to feather his nest a little, before leaving?"

"Not a bit of it," returned Jan. "He was over head and ears in debt. Sibylla helped him to a good portion of it. She went the pace. John Massingbird waives the question of the mesne profits, or Lionel would be in worse embarrassment than he is."

Dr. West looked crestfallen. "What do they live on?" he asked. "Does Lady Verner keep them? She can't have too much for herself now."

"Oh! it's managed somehow," said Jan.

Dr. West sat for some time in ruminating silence; pulling his whiskers as before, running his hands through his hair, the large clear blue sapphire ring, which he always wore on his finger, conspicuous. Jan swayed his legs about, and waited to afford any further information. Presently the doctor turned to him, a charming expression of open confidence on his countenance.

"Mr. Jan, I am in great hopes that you will do me a little favour. I have temporary need of a trifle of pecuniary aid--some slight debts which have grown upon me abroad," he added carelessly, with a short cough--"and, knowing your good heart, I have resolved to apply to you. If you can oblige me with a couple of hundred pounds or so, I'll give you my acknowledgment, and return it punctually as soon as I am able."

"I'd let you have it with all the pleasure in life, if I had got it," heartily replied Jan; "but I have not."

"My dear Mr. Jan! Not got it! You must have quite a nice little nest of savings laid by in the bank! I know you never spend a shilling on yourself."

"All I had in the bank, and what I have drawn since, has been handed to my mother. I wanted Lionel and Sibylla to come here: I and Miss Deb arranged it all; and in that case I should have given the money to Miss Deb. But Sibylla refused; she would not come here, she would not go anywhere but to Lady Verner's. So I handed the money to my mother."

The confession appeared to put the doctor out considerably. "How very imprudent, Mr. Jan! To give away all you possessed, leaving nothing for yourself! I never heard of such a thing!"

"Lionel and his wife were turned out of everything, and had nobody to look to. I don't see that I could have put the money to better use," stoutly returned Jan. "It was not much, there's such a lot of the Clay Lane folks always wanting things when they are ill. And Miss Deb, she had had something. You keep her so short, doctor."

"But you pay her the sum that was agreed upon for housekeeping?" said Dr. West.

"What should hinder me?" returned Jan. "Of course I do. But she cannot make both ends meet, she says, and then she has to come to me. I'm willing: only I can't give money away and put it by, you see."

Dr. West probably did see it. He saw beyond doubt, that all hope of ready money from easy Jan was gone--from the simple fact that Jan's coffers were just now empty. The fact did not afford him satisfaction.

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Jan," said he, brightening up, "you shall give me your signature to a little bill--a bill at two months, let us say. It will be the same as money."

"Can't," said Jan.

"You can't!" replied Dr. West.

"No!" said Jan resolutely. "I'd give away all I had in hand to give, and welcome; but I'd never sign bills. A doctor has no business with 'em. Don't you remember what they did for Jones at Bartholomew's?"

"I don't remember Jones at Bartholomew's," frigidly returned the doctor.

"No! Why, what's gone with your memory?" innocently asked Jan. "If you think a bit, you'll recollect about him, and what his end was. Bills did it; the signing of bills to oblige some friend. I'll never sign a bill, doctor. I wouldn't do it for my own mother."

Thus the doctor's expectations were put a final end to, so far as Jan went--and very certain expectations they had, no doubt, been. As to Jan, a thought may have crossed him that the doctor and his daughter Sibylla appeared to have the same propensity for getting out of money. Dr. West recovered his equanimity, and magnanimously waived the affair as a trifle not worth dwelling on.

"How does Cheese get on?" he asked.

"First rate--in the eating line," replied Jan.

"Have you got him out of his idleness yet?"

"It would take a more clever man than I to do that, doctor. It's constitutional. When he goes up to London, in the autumn, I shall take an assistant: unless you should be coming home yourself."

"I have no intention of it at present, Mr. Jan. Am I to understand you that Sibylla has serious symptoms of disease?"

"There's no doubt of it," said Jan. "You always prophesied it for her, you know. When she was at Verner's Pride she was continually ailing: not a week passed but I was called in to attend her. She was so imprudent too--she would be. Going out and getting her feet wet; sitting up half the night. We tried to bring her to reason; but it was of no use. She defied Lionel; she would not listen to me--as well speak to a post."

"Why should she defy her husband? Are they on bad terms?"

"They are on as good terms as any man and wife could be, Sibylla being the wife," was Jan's rejoinder. "You know something of her temper and disposition, doctor--it is of no use to mince matters--you remember how it had used to be with her here at home. Lionel's a husband in a thousand. How he can possibly put up with her, and be always patient and kind, puzzles me more than any problem ever did in Euclid. If Fred had lived--why, he'd have broken her spirit or her heart long before this."

Dr. West rose and stretched himself. The failings of Sibylla were not a pleasant topic, thus openly mentioned by Jan; but none knew better than the doctor how true were the grounds on which he spoke. None knew better, either, that disease for her was to be feared.

"Her sisters went off about this age, or a little later," he said musingly. "I could not save them."

"And Sibylla's as surely going after them, doctor, as that I am here," returned Jan. "Lionel intends to call in Dr. Hayes to her."

"Since when has she been so ill?"

"Not since any time in particular. There appears to be no real illness yet--only symptoms. She coughs, and gets as thin as a skeleton. Sometimes I think, if she could call up a cheerful temper, she'd keep well. You will see what you think of her."

The doctor walked towards the bureau at the far corner. "Have you ever opened it, Mr. Jan?"

"It's not likely," said Jan. "Didn't you tell me not to open it? Your own papers are in it, and you hold the key."

"It's not inconvenient to your room, my retaining it I hope?" asked the doctor. "I don't know where else I should put my papers."

"Not a bit of it," said Jan. "Have another in here as well, if you like. It's safe here."

"Do you know, Mr. Jan, I feel as if I'd rather sleep in your little bed to-night than indoors," said the doctor looking at Jan's bed. "The room seems like an old friend to me: I feel at home in it."

"Sleep in it, if you like," returned Jan, in his easy good nature. "Miss Deb can put me into some room or other. I say, doctor, it's past tea-time. Wouldn't you like some refreshment?"

"I had a good dinner on my road," replied Dr. West; which Jan might have guessed, for Dr. West was quite sure to take care of himself. "We will go in, if you like; Deb and Amilly will wonder what has become of me. How old they begin to look!"

"I don't suppose any of us look younger," answered Jan.

They went into the house. Deborah and Amilly were in a flutter of hospitality, lading the tea-table with good things that it would have gladdened Master Cheese's heart to see. They had been upstairs to smooth out their curls, to put on clean white sleeves and collars, a gold chain, and suchlike little additions, setting themselves off as they were now setting off the tea-table, all in their affectionate welcome to their father. And Dr. West, who liked eating as well as ever did Master Cheese, surveyed the table with complacency as he sat down to it, ignoring the dinner he had spoken of to Jan. Amilly sat by him, heaping his plate with what he liked best, and Deborah made the tea.

"I have been observing to Mr. Jan that you are beginning to look very old, Deb," remarked the doctor; "Amilly also."

It was a cruel shaft. A bitter return for their loving welcome. Perhaps they were looking older, but he need not have said it so point blank, and before Jan. They turned crimson, poor ladies, and bent to sip their tea, and tried to turn the words off with a laugh, and did not know where to look. In true innate delicacy of feeling, Dr. West and his daughter, Sibylla, rivalled each other.

The meal over, the doctor proposed to pay a visit to Deerham Court, and did so, Jan walking with him, first of all mentioning to Deborah the wish expressed by Dr. West as to occupying Jan's room for the night, that she might see the arrangement carried out.

Which she did. And Jan, at the retiring hour--though this is a little anticipating, for the evening is not yet over--escorted the doctor to the door of the room, and wished him a good night's rest, never imagining but that he enjoyed one. But had fire, or any other accident, burst open the room to public gaze in the lone night hours, Dr. West would have been seen at work, instead of asleep. Every drawer of the bureau was out, every paper it contained was misplaced. The doctor was evidently searching for something, as sedulously as he had once searched for that lost prescription, which at the time appeared so much to disturb his peace.

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LXXVII. AN EVENING AT LADY VERNER'S

In the well-lighted drawing-room at Deerham Court was its mistress, Lady Verner. Seated with her on the same sofa was her son, Lionel. Decima, at a little distance, was standing talking to Lord Garle. Lucy Tempest sat at the table cutting the leaves of a new book; and Sibylla was bending over the fire in a shivering attitude, as if she could not get enough of its heat. Lord Garle had been dining with them.

The door opened and Jan entered. "I have brought you a visitor, Sibylla," said he, in his unceremonious fashion, without any sort of greeting to anybody. "Come in, doctor."

It caused quite a confusion, the entrance of Dr. West. All were surprised. Lionel rose, Lucy rose; Lord Garle and Decima came forward, and Sibylla sprang towards him with a cry. Lady Verner was the only one who retained entire calmness.

"Papa! it cannot be you! When did you come?"

Dr. West kissed her, and turned to Lady Verner with some courtly words. Dr. West was an adept at such. Not the courtly words that spring genuinely from a kindly and refined nature; but those that are put on to hide a false one. All people, true-hearted ones, too, cannot distinguish between them; the false and the real. Next, the doctor grasped the hand of Lionel.

"My son-in-law!" he exclaimed in a very demonstrative manner. "The last time you and I had the pleasure of meeting, Mr. Verner, we little anticipated that such a relationship would ensue. I rejoice to welcome you in it, my dear sir."

"True," said Lionel, with a quiet smile. "Coming events do not always cast their shadows before."

With Decima, with Lord Garle, with Lucy Tempest, the doctor severally shook hands; he had a phrase of suavity for them all.

"I should not have known you," he said to the latter.

"No!" returned Lucy. "Why?"

"You have grown, Miss Tempest. Grown much."

"Then I must have been very short before," said Lucy. "I am not tall now."

"You have grown into remarkable beauty," added the doctor.

Whether Lucy had grown into beauty, or not, she did not like being told of it. And she did not like Dr. West. She had not been in love with him ever, as you may recollect; but she seemed to like him now, as he stood before her, less and less. Drawing away from him when she could do so civilly, she went up and talked to Jan.

A little while, and they had become more settled, dispersing into groups. The doctor, his daughter, and Lionel were sitting on a couch apart, conversing in an undertone; the rest disposed themselves as they would. Dr. West had accepted a cup of coffee. He kept it in his hand, sipping it now and then, and slowly ate a biscuit.

"Mr. Jan tells me Sibylla is not very strong," he observed, addressing both of them, but more particularly Lionel.

"Not very," replied Lionel. "The cold weather of this winter has tried her; has given her a cough. She will be better, I hope, when it comes in warm."

"How do you feel, my dear?" inquired the doctor, apparently looking at his coffee-cup instead of Sibylla. "Weak here?"--touching his chest.

"Not more weak than I had used to be," she answered in a cross tone, as if the confession that she did feel weak was not pleasant to her. "There's nothing the matter with me, papa; only Lionel makes a fuss."

"Nay, Sibylla," interposed Lionel good-humouredly, "I leave that to you and Jan."

"You would like to make papa believe you don't make a fuss!" she cried, in a most resentful tone; "when you know, not two days ago, you wanted to prevent my going to the party at Mrs. Bitterworth's!"

"I plead guilty to that," said Lionel. "It was a most inclement night, a cold, raw fog that penetrated everywhere, carriages and all else, and I wished you not to venture out in it. The doing so increased your cough."

"Mr. Verner was right," said Dr. West. "Night fogs are pernicious to a degree, where the chest and lungs are delicate. You should not stir out of the house, Sibylla, after sunset. Now don't interrupt, my dear. Let the carriage be ever so closely shut, it makes no difference. There is the change of atmosphere from the warm room to the cold carriage; there are the draughts of air in passing to it. You must not do it, Sibylla."

"Do you mean to say, papa, that I am to live like a hermit?--never to go out?" she returned, her bosom heaving with vexation. "It is not much visiting that I have had, goodness knows, since quitting Verner's Pride: if I am to give it all up, you may as well put me out of the world. As good be dead!"

"Sibylla," said the doctor, more impressively than he often spoke, "I know your constitution, and I know pretty well what you can and what you can not bear. Don't attempt to stir out after sunset again. Should you get stronger it will be a different matter. At present it must not be. Will you remember this, Mr. Verner?"

"If my wife will allow me to remember it," he said, bending to Sibylla with a kindly tone. "My will was good to keep her in, all this winter; but she would not be kept."

"What has Jan been telling you about me, papa? It is a shame of him! I am not ill."

"Mr. Jan has told me very little indeed of your ailments," replied Dr. West. "He says you are not strong; he says you are fretful, irritable. My dear, this arises from your state of health."

"I have thought so, too," said Lionel, speaking impulsively. Many and many a time, latterly, when she had nearly tired out his heart and his patience, had he been willing to find an excuse for her still--that her illness of body caused in her the irritation of mind. Or, at any rate, greatly increased it.

An eye, far less experienced than that of Dr. West--who, whatever may have been his other shortcomings, was clever in his profession--could have seen at a glance how weak Sibylla was. She wore an evening dress of white muslin, its body very low and its sleeves very short; her chest was painfully thin, and every breath she took lifted it ominously: she seemed to be breathing outside as well as in. The doctor touched the muslin.

"This is not a fit dress for you, Sibylla--"

"Lionel has been putting you up to say it, papa!" she burst forth.

Dr. West looked at her. He surmised, what was indeed the case, that her husband had remonstrated against the unsuitableness of the attire, to one in her condition.

"You have heard every word Mr. Verner has spoken to me, Sibylla. You should be wrapped up warmly always. To be exposed as you are now, is enough to--to"--give you your death, he was about to say, but changed the words--"make you very ill."

"Decima and Lucy Tempest dress so," she returned in a tone that threatened tears.

Dr. West lifted his eyes to where Decima and Lucy were standing with Lord Garle. Decima wore a silk dress, Lucy a white one; each made evening fashion.

"They are both healthy," he said, "and may wear what they please. Look at their necks, compared to yours, Sibylla. I shall ask Mr. Verner to put all these thin dresses, these low bodies, behind the fire."

"He would only have the pleasure of paying for others to replace them," was the undutiful rejoinder. "Papa, I have enough trouble, without your turning against me."

Turning against her! Dr. West did not point out how purposeless were her words. His intention was to come in in the morning, and talk to her seriously of her state of health, and the precautions it was necessary to observe. He took a sip of his coffee, and turned to Lionel.

"I was about to ask you a superfluous question, Mr. Verner--whether that lost codicil has been heard of. But your leaving Verner's Pride is an answer."

"It has never been heard of," replied Lionel. "When John Massingbird returned and put in his claim--when he took possession, I may say, for the one was coeval with the other--the wanting of the codicil was indeed a grievance; far more than it had appeared at the time of its loss."

"You must regret it very much."

"I regret it always," he answered. "I regret it bitterly for Sibylla's sake."

"Papa," she cried, in deep emotion, her cheeks becoming crimson, her blue eyes flashing with an unnatural light, "if that codicil could be found it would save my life. Jan, in his rough, stupid way, tells me I am fretting myself into my grave. Perhaps I am. I want to go back to Verner's Pride."

It was not a pleasant subject to converse on; it was a subject utterly hopeless--and Dr. West sought one more genial. Ranging his eyes over the room, they fell upon Lord Garle, who was still talking with Decima and Lucy.

"Which of the two young ladies makes the viscount's attraction, Mr. Verner?"

Lionel smiled. "They do not take me into their confidence, sir; any one of the three."

"I am sure it is not Decima, papa," spoke up Sibylla. "She's as cold as a stone. I won't answer for its not being Lucy Tempest. Lord Garle comes here a good deal, and he and Lucy seem great friends. I often think he comes for Lucy."

"Then there's little doubt upon the point," observed the doctor, coming to a more rapid conclusion than the words really warranted. "Time was, Mr. Verner, when I thought that young lady would have been your wife."

"Who?" asked Lionel. But that he only asked the question in his confusion, without need, was evident; the tell-tale flush betrayed it. His pale face had turned red; red to the very roots of his hair.

"In those old days when you were ill, lying here, and Miss Tempest was so much with you, I fancied I saw the signs of a mutual attachment," continued the doctor. "I conclude I must have been mistaken."

"Little doubt of that, doctor," lightly answered Lionel, recovering his equanimity, though he could not yet recover his disturbed complexion, and laughing as he spoke.

Sibylla's greedy ears had drunk up the words, her sharp eyes had caught the conscious flush, and her jealous heart was making the most of it. At that unfortunate moment, as ill-luck had it, Lucy brought up the basket of cakes and held it out to Dr. West. Lionel rose to take it from her.

"I was taking your name in vain, Miss Tempest," said the complacent doctor. "Did you hear me?"

"No," replied Lucy, smiling. "What about?"

"I was telling Mr. Verner that in the old days I had deemed his choice was falling upon another, rather than my daughter. Do you remember, young lady?--in that long illness of his?"

Lucy did remember. And the remembrance, thus called suddenly before her, the words themselves, the presence of Lionel, all brought to her far more emotion than had arisen to him. Her throat heaved as with a spasm, and the startled colour dyed her face. Lionel saw it. Sibylla saw it.

"It proves to us how we may be mistaken, Miss Tempest," observed the doctor, who, from that habit of his, already hinted at, of never looking people in the face when he spoke to them, had failed to observe anything. "I hear there is a probability of this fair hand being appropriated by another. One who can enhance his value by coupling it with a coronet."

"Don't take the trouble, Lucy. I am holding it."

It was Lionel who spoke. In her confusion she had not loosed hold of the cake-basket, although he had taken it. Quietly, impassively, in the most unruffled manner spoke he, smiling carelessly. Only for a moment had his self-control been shaken. "Will you take a biscuit, Dr. West?" he asked; and the doctor chose one.

"Lucy, my dear, will you step here to me?"

The request came from the other end of the room, from Lady Verner. Lionel, who was about to place the cake-basket on the table, stopped and held out his arm to Lucy, to conduct her to his mother. They went forward, utterly unconscious that Sibylla was casting angry and jealous glances at them; conscious only that those sacred feelings in either heart, so well hid from the world, had been stirred to their very depths.

The door opened, and one of the servants entered. "Mr. Jan is wanted."

"Who's been taken ill now, I wonder?" cried Jan, descending from the arm of his mother's sofa, where he had been perched.

In the ante-room was Master Cheese, looking rueful.

"There's a message come from Squire Pidcock's," cried he in a most resentful tone. "Somebody's to attend immediately. Am I to go?"

"I suppose you'd faint at having to go, after being up to Miss Hautley's," returned Jan. "You'd never survive the two, should you?"

"Well, you know, Jan, it's a good mile and a half to Pidcock's, and I had to go to the other place without my tea," remonstrated Master Cheese.

"I dare say Miss Deb has given you your tea since you came home."

"But it's not like having it at the usual hour. And I couldn't finish it in comfort, when this message came."

"Be off back and finish it now, then," said Jan. And the young gentleman departed with alacrity, while Jan made the best of his way to Squire Pidcock's.

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LXXVIII. AN APPEAL TO JOHN MASSINGBIRD

Lionel Verner walked home with Dr. West, later in the evening. "What do you think of Sibylla?" was his first question, before they had well quitted the gates.

"My opinion is not a favourable one, so far as I can judge at present," replied Dr. West. "She must not be crossed, Mr. Verner."

"Heaven is my witness that she is not crossed by me, Dr. West," was the reply of Lionel, given more earnestly than the occasion seemed to call for. "From the hour I married her, my whole life has been spent in the endeavour to shield her from crosses, so far as lies in the power of man; to cherish her in all care and tenderness. There are few husbands would bear with her--her peculiarities--as I have borne; as I will still bear. I say this to you, her father; I would say it to no one else. My chief regret, at the wrenching from me of Verner's Pride, is for Sibylla's sake."

"My dear sir, I honestly believe you. I know what Sibylla was at home, fretful, wayward, and restless; and those tendencies are not likely to be lessened, now disease has shown itself. I always feared it was in her constitution; that, in spite of all our care, she would follow her sisters. They fell off and died, you may remember, when they seemed most blooming. People talked freely--as I understood at the time--about my allowing her so suddenly to marry Frederick Massingbird; but my course was dictated by one sole motive--that it would give her the benefit of a sea voyage, which might prove invaluable to her constitution."

Lionel believed just as much of this as he liked. Dr. West was his wife's father, and, as such, he deferred to him. He remembered what had been told him by Sibylla; and he remembered the promise he had given her.

"It's a shocking pity that you are turned from Verner's Pride!" resumed the doctor.

"It is. But there's no help for it."

"Does Sibylla grieve after it very much? Has it any real effect, think you, upon her health?--as she seemed to intimate."

"She grieves, no doubt. She keeps up the grief, if you can understand it, Dr. West. Not a day passes, but she breaks into lamentations over the loss, complaining loudly and bitterly. Whether her health would not equally have failed at Verner's Pride, I am unable to say. I think it would."

"John Massingbird, under the circumstances, ought to give it up to you. It is rightfully yours. Sibylla's life--and she is his own cousin--may depend upon it: he ought not to keep it. But for the loss of the codicil, he would never have come to it."

"Of course he could not," assented Lionel. "It is that loss which has upset everything."

Dr. West fell into silence, and continued in it until his house was in view. Then he spoke again.

"What will you undertake to give me, Mr. Verner, if I can bring John Massingbird to hear reason, and re-establish you at Verner's Pride?"

"Not anything," answered Lionel. "Verner's Pride is John Massingbird's according to the law; therefore it cannot be mine. Neither would he resign it."

"I wonder whether it could be done by stratagem?" mused Dr. West. "Could we persuade him that the codicil has turned up?--or something of that? It would be very desirable for Sibylla."

"If I go back to Verner's Pride at all, sir, I go back by right; neither by purchase nor by stratagem," was the reply of Lionel. "Rely upon it, things set about in an underhand manner never prosper."

"I might get John Massingbird to give it up to you," continued the doctor, nodding his head thoughtfully, as if he had some scheme afloat in it. "I might get him to resign it to you, rents and residence and all, and betake himself off. You would give me a per centage?"

"Were John Massingbird to offer such to me to-morrow, of his own free will, I should decline it," decisively returned Lionel. "I have suffered too much from Verner's Pride ever to take possession of it again, except by indisputable right--a right in which I cannot be disturbed. Twice have I been turned from it, as you know. And the turning out has cost me more than the world deemed."

"But surely you would go back to it if you could, for Sibylla's sake?"

"Were I a rich man, able to rent Verner's Pride from John Massingbird, I might ask him to let it me, if it would gratify Sibylla. But, to return there as its master, on sufferance, liable to be expelled again at any moment--never! John Massingbird holds the right to Verner's Pride, and he will exercise it, for me."

"Then you will not accept my offer--to try and get you back again; and to make me a substantial honorarium if I do it?"

"I do not understand you, Dr. West. The question cannot arise."

"If I make it arise; and carry it out?"

"I beg your pardon--No."

It was an emphatic denial, and Dr. West may have felt himself foiled; as he had been foiled by Jan's confession of empty pockets, earlier in the evening.

"Nevertheless," observed he equably, as he shook hands with Lionel, before entering his own house, "I shall see John Massingbird to-morrow, and urge the hardship of the case upon him."

It was probably with that view that Dr. West proceeded early on the following morning to Verner's Pride, after his night of search, instead of sleep, astonishing John Massingbird not a little. That gentleman was enjoying himself in a comfortable sort of way in his bedroom. A substantial breakfast was laid out on a table by the bedside, while he, not risen, smoked a pipe as he lay, by way of whetting his appetite. Dr. West entered without ceremony.

"My stars!" uttered John, when he could believe his eyes. "It's never you, Uncle West! Did you drop from a balloon?"

Dr. West explained. That he had come over for a few hours' sojourn. The state of his dear daughter Sibylla was giving him considerable uneasiness, and he had put himself to the expense and inconvenience of a journey to see her, and judge of her state himself.

That there were a few trifling inaccuracies in this statement, inasmuch as that his daughter's state had had nothing to do with the doctor's journey, was of little consequence. It was all one to John Massingbird. He made a hasty toilette, and invited the doctor to take some breakfast.

Dr. West was nothing loth. He had breakfasted at home; but a breakfast more or less was nothing to Dr. West. He sat down to the table, and took a choice morsel of boned chicken on his plate.

"John, I have come up to talk to you about Verner's Pride."

"What about it?" asked John, speaking with his mouth full of devilled kidneys.

"The place is Lionel Verner's."

"How d'ye make out that?" asked John.

"That codicil revoked the will which left the estate to you. It gave it to him."

"But the codicil vanished," answered John.

"True. I was present at the consternation it excited. It disappeared in some unaccountably mysterious way; but there's no doubt that Mr. Verner died, believing the estate would go in its direct line--to Lionel. In fact, I know he did. Therefore you ought to act as though the codicil were in existence, and resign the estate to Lionel Verner."

The recommendation excessively tickled the fancy of John Massingbird. It set him laughing for five minutes.

"In short, you never ought to have attempted to enter upon it," continued Dr. West. "Will you resign it to him?"

"Uncle West, you'll kill me with laughter, if you joke like that," was the reply.

"I have little doubt that the codicil is still in existence," urged Dr. West. "I remember my impression at the time was that it was only mislaid, temporarily lost. If that codicil turned up, you would be obliged to quit."

"So I should," said John, with equanimity. "Let Lionel Verner produce it, and I'll vacate the next hour. That will never turn up: don't you fret yourself, Uncle West."

"Will you not resign it to him?"

"No, that I won't. Verner's Pride is mine by law. I should be a simpleton to give it up."

"Sibylla's pining for it," resumed the doctor, trying what a little pathetic pleading would do. "She will as surely die, unless she can come back to Verner's Pride, as that you and I are at breakfast here."

"If you ask my opinion, Uncle West, I should say that she'd die, any way. She looks like it. She's fading away just as the other two did. But she won't die a day sooner for being away from Verner's Pride; and she would not have lived an hour longer had she remained in it. That's my belief."

"Verner's Pride never was intended for you, John," cried the doctor. "Some freak caused Mr. Verner to will it away from Lionel; but he came to his senses before he died, and repaired the injury."

"Then I am so much the more obliged to the freak," was the good-humoured but uncompromising rejoinder of John Massingbird.

And more than that Dr. West could not make of him. John was evidently determined to stand by Verner's Pride. The doctor then changed his tactics, and tried a little business on his own account--that of borrowing from John Massingbird as much money as that gentleman would lend.

It was not much. John, in his laughing way, protested he was always "cleaned out." Nobody knew but himself--but he did not mind hinting it to Uncle West--the heaps of money he had been obliged to "shell out" before he could repose in tranquillity at Verner's Pride. There were back entanglements and present expenses, not to speak of sums spent in benevolence.

"Benevolence?" the doctor exclaimed.

"Yes, benevolence," John replied with a semi-grave face; he "had had to give away an unlimited number of bank-notes to the neighbourhood, as a recompense for having terrified it into fits." There were times when he thought he should have to come upon Lionel Verner for the mesne profits, he observed. A procedure which he was unwilling to resort to for two reasons: the reason was that Lionel possessed nothing to pay them with; the other, that he, John, never liked to be hard.

So the doctor had to content himself with a very trifling loan, compared with the sum he had fondly anticipated. He dropped some obscure hints that the evidence he could give, if he chose, with reference to the codicil, or rather what he knew to have been Mr. Verner's intentions, might go far to deprive his nephew John of the estate. But his nephew only laughed at him, and could not by any manner of means be induced to treat the hints as serious. A will was a will, he said, and Verner's Pride was indisputably his.

Altogether, taking one thing with another, Dr. West's visit to Deerham had not been quite so satisfactory as he had anticipated it might be made. After quitting John Massingbird, he went to Deerham Court and remained a few hours with Sibylla. The rest of the day he divided between his daughters in their sitting-room, and Jan in the surgery, taking his departure again from Deerham by the night train.

And Deborah and Amilly, drowned in tears, said his visit could be compared only to the flash of a comet's tail; no sooner seen than gone again.

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LXXIX. A SIN AND A SHAME

As the spring advanced, sickness began to prevail in Deerham. The previous autumn, the season when the enemy chiefly loved to show itself, had been comparatively free, but he appeared to be about taking his revenge now. In every third house people were down with ague and fever. Men who ought to be strong for their daily toil, women whose services were wanted for their households and their families, children whose young frames were unfitted to battle with it, were indiscriminately attacked. It was capricious as a summer's wind. In some dwellings it would be the strongest and bravest that were singled out; in some the weakest and most delicate. Jan was worked off his legs. Those necessary appendages to active Jan generally were exercised pretty well; but Jan could not remember the time when they had been worked as they were now. Jan grew cross. Not at the amount of work: it may be questioned whether Jan did not rather prefer that, than the contrary; but at the prevailing state of things. "It's a sin and a shame that precautions are not taken against this periodical sickness," said Jan, speaking out more forcibly than was his wont. "If the place were drained and the dwellings improved, the ague would run away to more congenial quarters. I'd not own Verner's Pride, unless I could show myself fit to be its owner."

The shaft may have been levelled at John Massingbird, but Lionel Verner took it to himself. How full of self-reproach he was, he alone knew. He had had the power in his own hands to make these improvements, and in some manner or other he had let the time slip by: now, the power was wrested from him. It is ever so. Golden opportunities come into our hands, and we look at them complacently, and--do not use them. Bitter regrets, sometimes remorse, take their places when they have flitted away for ever; but neither the regret nor the remorse can recall the opportunity lost.

Lionel pressed the necessity upon John Massingbird. It was all he could do now. John received it with complacent good-humour, and laughed at Lionel for making the request. But that was all.

"Set about draining Clay Lane, and build up new tenements in place of the old?" cried he. "What next, Lionel?"

"Look at the sickness the present state of things brings," returned Lionel. "It is what ought to have been altered years ago."

"Ah!" said John. "Why didn't you alter it, then, when you had Verner's Pride?"

"You may well ask! It was my first thought when I came into the estate. I would set about that; I would set about other improvements. Some I did carry out, as you know; but these, the most needful, I left in abeyance. It lies on my conscience now."

They were in the study. Lionel was at the desk, some papers before him; John Massingbird had lounged in for a chat--as he was fond of doing, to the interruption of Lionel. He was leaning against the door-post; his attire not precisely such that a gentleman might choose, who wished to send his photograph to make a morning call. His pantaloons were hitched up by a belt; braces, John said, were not fashionable at the diggings, and he had learned the comfort of doing without them; a loose sort of round drab coat without tails; no waistcoat; a round brown hat, much bent, and a pair of slippers. Such was John Massingbird's favourite costume, and he might be seen in it at all hours of the day. When he wanted to go abroad, his toilette was made, as the French say, by the exchanging of the slippers for boots, and the taking in his hand a club stick. John's whiskers were growing again, and promised to be as fine a pair as he had worn before going out to Australia; and now he was letting his beard grow, but it looked very grim and stubbly. Truth to say, a stranger passing through the village and casting his eyes on Mr. John Massingbird, would have taken him to be a stable helper, rather than the master of that fine place, Verner's Pride. Just now he had a clay pipe in his mouth, its stem little more than an inch long.

"Do you mean to assert that you'd set about these improvements, as you call them, were you to come again into Verner's Pride?" asked he of Lionel.

"I believe I should. I would say unhesitatingly that I should, save for past experience," continued Lionel. "Before my uncle died, I knew how necessary it was that they should be made, and I as much believed that I should set about them the instant I came into the estate, as that I believe I am now talking to you. But you see I did not begin them. It has taught me to be chary of making assertions beforehand."

"I suppose you think you'd do it?"

"If I know anything of my own resolution I should do it. Were Verner's Pride to lapse to me to-morrow, I believe I should set about it the next day. But," Lionel added after a short pause, "there's no probability of its lapsing to me. Therefore I want you to set about it in my place."

"I can't afford it," replied John Massingbird.

"Nonsense! I wish I could afford things a quarter as well as you."

"I tell you I can't," reiterated John, taking his pipe from his mouth to make a spittoon of the carpet--another convenience he had learned at the diggings. "I'm sure I don't know how on earth my money goes; I never did know all my life how money went; but, go it does. When Fred and I were little chaps, some benevolent old soul tipped us half a crown apiece. Mine was gone by middle-day, and I could not account for more than ninepence of it--never could to this day. Fred, at the end of a twelvemonth's time, had got his half-crown still snug in his pocket. Had Fred come into Verner's Pride, he'd have lived in style on a thousand of his income yearly, and put by the rest."

He never would, Sibylla being his wife, thought Lionel. But he did not say it to John Massingbird.

"An estate, such as this, brings its duties with it, John," said he. "Remember those poor people down with sickness."

"Bother duty," returned John. "Look here, Lionel; you waste your breath and your words. I have not got the money to spend upon it; how do you know, old fellow, what my private expenses may be? And if I had the money, I should not do it," he continued. "The present state of the property was deemed good enough by Mr. Verner; it was so deemed (if we may judge by facts) by Mr. Lionel Verner; and it is deemed good enough by John Massingbird. It is not he who's going to have the cost thrown upon him. So let it drop."

There was no resource but to let it drop; for that he was in full earnest, Lionel saw. John continued--

"You can save up the alterations for yourself, to be commenced when you come into the property. A nice bonne bouche of outlay for you to contemplate."

"I don't look to come into it," replied Lionel.

"The probabilities are that you will come into it," returned John Massingbird, more seriously than he often spoke. "Barring getting shot, or run over by a railway train, you'll make old bones, you will. You have never played with your constitution; I have, in more ways than one: and in bare years I have considerably the advantage of you. Psha! when I am a skeleton in my coffin, you'll still be a young man. You can make your cherished alterations then."

"You may well say in more ways than one," returned Lionel, half joking, half serious. "There's smoking among the catalogue. How many pipes do you smoke in a day? Fifty?"

"Why didn't you say day and night? Tynn lives in perpetual torment lest my bed should ignite some night, and burn up him, as well as Verner's Pride. I go to sleep sometimes with my pipe in my mouth as we do at the diggings. Now and then I feel half inclined to make a rush back there. It suited me better than this."

Lionel bent over some papers that were before him--a hint that he had business to do. Mr. Massingbird did not take it. He began filling his pipe again, scattering the tobacco on the ground wholesale in the process, and talking at the same time.

"I say, Lionel, why did old Verner leave the place away from you? Have you ever wondered?"

Lionel glanced up at him in surprise.

"Have I ever ceased wondering, you might have said. I don't know why he did."

"Did he never give you a reason--or an explanation?"

"Nothing of the sort. Except--yes, except a trifle. Some time after his death, Mrs. Tynn discovered a formidable-looking packet in one of his drawers, sealed and directed to me. She thought it was the missing codicil; so did I, until I opened it. It proved to contain nothing but a glove; one of my old gloves, and a few lines from my uncle. They were to the effect that when I received the glove I should know why he disinherited me."

"And did you know?" asked John Massingbird, applying a light to his pipe.

"Not in the least. It left the affair more obscure, if possible, than it had been before. I suppose I never shall know now."

"Never's a long day," cried John Massingbird. "But you told me about this glove affair before."

"Did I? Oh, I remember. When you first returned. That is all the explanation I have ever had."

"It was not much," said John. "Dickens take this pipe! It won't draw. Where's my knife?"

Not finding his knife about him, he went off to look for it, dragging his slippers along the hall in his usual lazy fashion. Lionel, glad of the respite, applied himself to his work.

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LXXX. RECOLLECTIONS OF A NIGHT GONE BY

One was dying in Deerham, but not of ague, and that was old Matthew Frost. Matthew was dying of old age, to which we must all succumb, if we live long enough.

April was in, and the fever and ague were getting better. News was brought to Lionel one morning that old Matthew was not expected to last through the day. Jan entered the breakfast-room at Deerham Court and told him so. Lionel had been starting to Verner's Pride; but he changed his course towards Clay Lane.

"Jan," said he, as he was turning away, "I wish you'd go up and see Sibylla. I am sure she is very ill."

"I'll go if you like," said Jan. "But there's no use in it. She won't listen to a word I say, or attend to a single direction that I give. Hayes told me, when he came over last week, that it was the same with him. She persists to him, as she does to me, that she has no need of medicine or care; that she is quite well."

"I am aware she persists in it," replied Lionel, "but I feel sure she is very ill."

"I know she is," said Jan, "She's worse than folks think for. Perhaps you amongst them, Lionel. I'll go up to her." He turned back to the house as he spoke, and Lionel went on to Clay Lane.

Old Matthew was lying on his bed, very peaceful--peaceful as to his inward and his outward state. Though exceedingly weak, gradually sinking, he retained both speech and intellect: he was passing away without pain, and with his faculties about him. What a happy death-bed, when all is peace within! His dim eyes lighted up with pleasure when he saw Mr. Verner.

"Have you come to see the last of me, sir?" he asked, as Lionel took his hand.

"Not quite the last yet, I hope, Matthew."

"Don't hope it, sir; nor wish it, neither," returned the old man, lifting his hand with a deprecatory movement. "I'm on the threshold of a better world, sir, and I'd not turn back to this, if God was to give me the choice of it. I'm going to my rest, sir. Like as my bed has waited for me and been welcome to me after a hard day's toil, so is my rest now at hand after my life's toil. It is as surely waiting for me as ever was my bed; and I am longing to get to it."

Lionel looked down at the calm, serene face, fair and smooth yet. The skin was drawn tight over it, especially over the well-formed nose, and the white locks fell on the pillow behind. It may be wrong to say there was a holy expression pervading the face; but it certainly gave that impression to Lionel Verner.

"I wish all the world--when their time comes--could die as you are dying, Matthew!" he exclaimed, in the impulse of his heart.

"Sir, all might, if they'd only live for it. It's many a year ago now, Mr. Lionel, that I learned to make a friend of God: He has stood me in good need. And those that do learn to make a friend of Him, sir, don't fear to go to Him."

Lionel drew forward a chair and sat down in it. The old man continued--

"Things seemed to have been smoothed for me in a wonderful manner, sir. My great trouble, of late years, has been Robin. I feared how it might be with him when I went away and left him here alone; for you know the queer way he has been in, sir, since that great misfortune; and I have been a bit of a check on him, keeping him, as may be said, within bounds. Well, that trouble is done away for me, sir; Robin he has got his mind at rest, and he won't break out again. In a short while I am in hopes he'll be quite what he used to be."

"Matthew, it was my firm intention to continue your annuity to Robin," spoke Lionel. "I am sorry the power to do so has been taken from me. You know that it will not rest with me now, but with Mr. Massingbird. I fear he is not likely to continue it."

"Don't regret it, sir. Robin, I say, is growing to be an industrious man again, and he can get a living well. If he had stopped a half-dazed-do-nothing, he might have wanted that, or some other help; but it isn't so. His trouble's at rest, and his old energies are coming back to him. It seems to have left my mind at leisure, sir; and I can go away, praying for the souls of my poor daughter and of Frederick Massingbird."

The name--his--aroused the attention of Lionel; more, perhaps, than he would have cared to confess. But his voice and manner retained their quiet calmness.

"What did you say, Matthew?"

"It was him, sir; Mr. Frederick Massingbird. It was nobody else."

Down deep in Lionel Verner's heart there had lain a conviction, almost ever since that fatal night, that the man had been no other than the one now spoken of, the younger Massingbird. Why the impression should have come to him he could not have told at the time; something, perhaps, in Frederick's manner had given rise to it. On the night before John Massingbird's departure for Australia, after the long interview he had held with Mr. Verner in the study, which was broken in upon by Lionel on the part of Robin Frost, the three young men--the Massingbirds and Lionel--had subsequently remained together, discussing the tragedy. In that interview it was that a sudden doubt of Frederick Massingbird entered the mind of Lionel. It was impossible for him to tell why. He only knew that the impression--nay, it were more correct to say the conviction, seized hold upon him, never to be eradicated. Perhaps something strange in Frederick's manner awoke it. Lionel surmised not how far his guilt might have extended; but that he was the guilty one, he fully believed. It was not his business to proclaim this; had it been a certainty, instead of a fancy, Lionel would not have made it his business. But when Frederick Massingbird was on the point of marrying Sibylla, then Lionel partially broke through his reserve, and asked him whether he had nothing on his conscience that ought to prevent his making her his wife. Frederick answered freely and frankly, to all appearance, and for the moment Lionel's doubts were dissipated: only, however, to return afterwards with increased force. Consequently he was not surprised to hear this said, though surprised at Matthew Frost's knowing it.

"How did you hear it, Matthew?" he asked.

"Robin got at it, sir. Poor Robin, he was altogether on the wrong scent for a long while, thinking it was Mr. John; but it's set right now, and Robin, he's at ease. May Heaven have mercy upon Frederick Massingbird!"

Successful rival though he had proved to him, guilty man that he had been, Lionel heartily echoed the prayer. He asked no more questions of the old man upon the subject, but afterwards, when he was going out, he met Robin and stopped him.

"Robin, what is this that your father has been telling me about Frederick Massingbird?"

"Only to think of it!" was Robin's response, growing somewhat excited. "To think how our ways get balked! I had swore to be revenged--as you know, sir--and now the power of revenge is took from me! He's gone where my revenge can't reach him. It's of no good--I see it--for us to plan. Our plans'll never be carried out, if they don't please God."

"And it was Frederick Massingbird?"

"It was Frederick Massingbird," assented Robin, his breath coming thick and fast with agitation. "We had got but one little ewe lamb, and he must leave the world that was open to him, and pick her up, and destroy her! I ain't calm yet to talk of it, sir."

"But how did you ascertain this? Your suspicions, you know, were directed to Mr. John Massingbird: wrongly, as I believed; as I told you."

"Yes, they were wrong," said Robin. "I was put upon the wrong scent: but not wilfully. You might remember a dairy wench that lived at Verner's Pride in them days, sir--Dolly, her name was; she that went and got married after to Joe Stubbs, Mr. Bitterworth's wagoner. It was she told me, sir. I used to be up there a good bit with Stubbs, and one day when I was sick and ill there, the wife told me she had seen one of the gentlemen come from the Willow Pool that past night. I pressed her to tell me which of them, and at first she said she couldn't, and then she said it was Mr. John. I never thought but she told me right, but it seems--as she confesses now--that she only fixed on him to satisfy me, and because she thought he was dead, over in Australia, and it wouldn't matter if she did say it. I worried her life out over it, she says; and it's like I did. She says now, if she was put upon her Bible oath, she couldn't say which of the gentlemen it was, more nor the other; but she did see one of 'em."

"But this is not telling me how you know it to have been Mr. Frederick, Robin."

"I learned it from Mr. John," was the reply. "When he come back I saw him; I knew it was him; and I got a gun and watched for him. I meant to take my revenge, sir. Roy, he found me out; and in a night or two, he brought me face to face with Mr. John, and Mr. John he told me the truth. But he'd only tell it me upon my giving him my promise not to expose his brother. So I'm balked even of that revenge. I had always counted on the exposing of the man," added Robin in a dreamy tone, as if he were looking back into the past; "when I thought it was Mr. John, I only waited for Luke Roy to come home, that I might expose him. I judged that Luke, being so much with him in Australia, might have heard a slip word drop as would confirm it. Somehow, though I thought Dolly Stubbs spoke truth, I didn't feel so sure of her as to noise it abroad."

"You say it was Mr. John Massingbird who told you it was his brother?"

"He told me, sir. He told me at Roy's, when he was a-hiding there. When the folks here was going mad about the ghost, I knowed who the ghost was, and had my laugh at 'em. It seemed that I could laugh then," added Robin, looking at Mr. Verner, as if he deemed an apology for the words necessary. "My mind was set at rest."

Did a thought cross Lionel Verner that John Massingbird, finding his own life in peril from Robin's violence, had thrown the blame upon his brother falsely? It might have done so, but for his own deeply-rooted suspicions. That John would not be scrupulously regardful of truth, he believed, where his own turn was to be served. Lionel, at any rate, felt that he should like, for his own satisfaction, to have the matter set at rest, and he took his way to Verner's Pride.

John Massingbird, his costume not improved in elegance, or his clay pipe in length, was lounging at his ease on one of the amber damask satin couches of the drawing-room, his feet on the back of a proximate chair, and his slippers fallen off on the carpet. A copious tumbler of rum-and-water--his favourite beverage since his return--was on a table, handy; and there he lay enjoying his ease.

"Hollo, old fellow! How are you?" was his greeting to Lionel, given without changing his position in the least.

"Massingbird, I want to speak to you," rejoined Lionel. "I have been to see old Matthew Frost, and he has said something which surprises me--"

"The old man's about to make a start of it, I hear," was the interruption of Mr. Massingbird.

"He cannot last long. He has been speaking--naturally--of that unhappy business of his daughter's. He lays it to the door of Frederick; and Robin tells me he had the information from you."

"I was obliged to give it him, in self-defence," said John Massingbird. "The fellow had got it into his head, in some unaccountable manner, that I was the black sheep, and was prowling about with a gun, ready capped and loaded, to put a bullet into me. I don't set so much store by my life as some fidgets do, but it's not pleasant to be shot off in that summary fashion. So I sent for Mr. Robin and satisfied him that he was making the same blunder that Deerham just then was making--mistaking one brother for the other."

"Was it Frederick?"

"It was."

"Did you know it at the time?"

"No. Never suspected him at all."

"Then how did you learn it afterwards?"

John Massingbird took his legs from the chair. He rose, and brought himself to an anchor on a seat facing Lionel, puffing still at his incessant pipe.

"I don't mind trusting you, old chap, being one of us, and I couldn't help trusting Robin Frost. Roy, he knew it before--at least, his wife did; which amounts to something of the same; and she spoke of it to me. I have ordered them to keep a close tongue, under pain of unheard-of penalties--which I should never inflict; but it's as well to let poor Fred's memory rest in quiet and good odour. I believe honestly it's the only scrape of the sort he ever got into. He was cold and cautious."

"But how did you learn it?" reiterated Lionel.

"I'll tell you. I learned it from Luke Roy."

"From Luke Roy!" repeated Lionel, more at sea than before.

"Do you remember that I had sent Luke on to London a few days before this happened? He was to get things forward for our voyage. He was fou--as the French say--after Rachel; and what did he do but come back again in secret, to get a last look at her, perhaps a word. It happened to be this very night, and Luke was a partial witness to the scene at the Willow Pond. He saw and heard her meeting with Frederick; heard quite enough to know that there was no chance for him; and he was stealing away, leaving Fred and Rachel at the termination of their quarrel, when he met his mother. She knew him, it seems, and to that encounter we are indebted for her display when before Mr. Verner, and her lame account of the 'ghost.' You must recollect it. She got up the ghost tale to excuse her own terror; to throw the scent off Luke. The woman says her life, since, has been that of a martyr, ever fearing that suspicion might fall upon her son. She recognised him beyond doubt; and nearly died with the consternation. He glided off, never speaking to her, but the fear and consternation remained. She recognised, too, she says, the voice of Frederick as the one that was quarrelling; but she did not dare confess it. For one thing, she knew not how far Luke might be implicated."

Lionel leaned his brow on his hand, deep in thought. "How far was Frederick implicated?" he asked in a low tone. "Did he--did he put her into the pond?"

"No!" burst forth John Massingbird, with a vehemence that sent the ashes of his pipe flying. "Fred would not be guilty of such a crime as that, any more than you or I would. He had--he had made vows to the girl, and broken them; and that was the extent of it. No such great sin, after all, or it wouldn't be so fashionable a one," carelessly added John Massingbird.

Lionel waited in silence.

"By what Luke could gather," went on John, "it appeared that Rachel had seen Fred that night with his cousin Sibylla--your wife now. What she had seen or heard, goodness knows; but enough to prove to her that Fred's real love was given to Sibylla, that she was his contemplated wife. It drove Rachel mad: Fred had probably filled her up with the idea that the honour was destined for herself. Men are deceivers ever, and women soft, you know, Lionel."

"And they quarrelled over it?"

"They quarrelled over it. Rachel, awakened out of her credulity, met him with bitter reproaches. Luke could not hear what was said towards its close. The meeting--no doubt a concerted one--had been in that grove in view of the Willow Pond, the very spot that Master Luke had chosen for his own hiding-place. They left it and walked towards Verner's Pride, disputing vehemently; Roy made off the other way, and the last he saw of them, when they were nearly out of sight, was a final explosion, in which they parted. Fred set off to run towards Verner's Pride, and Rachel came flying back towards the pond. There's not a shadow of doubt that in her passion, her unhappy state of feeling, she flung herself in; and if Luke had only waited two minutes longer, he might have been in at the death--as we say by the foxes. That's the solution of what has puzzled Deerham for years, Lionel."

"Could Luke not have saved her?"

"He never knew she was in the pond. Whether the unexpected sight of his mother scared his senses away, he has often wondered; but he heard neither the splash in the water nor the shriek. He made off, pretty quick, he says, for fear his mother should attempt to stop him, or proclaim his presence aloud--an inconvenient procedure, since he was supposed to be in London. Luke never knew of her death until we were on the voyage. I got to London only in time to go on board the ship in the docks, and we had been out for days at sea before he learned that Rachel was dead, or I that Luke had been down, on the sly, to Deerham. I had to get over that precious sea-sickness before entering upon that, or any other talk, I can tell you. It's a shame it should attack men!"

"I suspected Fred at the time," said Lionel.

"You did! Well, I did not. My suspicions had turned to a very different quarter."

"Upon whom?"

"Oh, bother! where's the good of ripping it up, now it's over and done with?" retorted John Massingbird. "There's the paper of baccy by your elbow, chum. Chuck it here."

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LXXXI. A CRISIS IN SIBYLLA'S LIFE

Sibylla Verner improved neither in health nor in temper. Body and mind were alike diseased. As the spring had advanced, her weakness appeared to increase; the symptoms of consumption became more palpable. She would not allow that she was ill; she, no doubt, thought that there was nothing serious the matter with her; nothing, as she told everybody, but the vexing after Verner's Pride.

Dr. West had expressed an opinion that her irritability, which she could neither conceal nor check, was the result of her state of health. He was very likely right. One thing was certain; that since she grew weaker and worse, this unhappy frame of mind had greatly increased. The whole business of her life appeared to be to grumble, to be cross, snappish, fretful. If her body was diseased, most decidedly her temper was also. The great grievance of quitting Verner's Pride she made a plea for the indulgence of every complaint under the sun. She could no longer gather a gay crowd of visitors around her; she had lost the opportunity with Verner's Pride; she could no longer indulge in unlimited orders for new dresses and bonnets, and other charming adjuncts to the toilette, without reference to how they were to be paid for; she had not a dozen servants at her beck and call; and if she wanted to pay a visit, there was no elegant equipage, the admiration of all beholders, to convey her. She had lost all with Verner's Pride. Not a day--scarcely an hour--passed, but one or other, or all of these vexations, were made the subject of fretful, open repining. Not to Lady Verner--Sibylla would not have dared to annoy her; not to Decima or to Lucy; but to her husband. How weary his ear was, how weary his spirit, no tongue could tell. She tried him in every way--she did nothing but find fault with him. When he stayed out, she grumbled at him for staying, meeting him with reproaches on his entrance; when he remained in, she grumbled at him. In her sad frame of mind it was essential--there are frames of mind in which it is essential, as the medical men will tell you, where the sufferer cannot help it--that she should have some object on whom to vent her irritability. Not being in her own house, there was but her husband. He was the only one sufficiently nearly connected with her to whom the courtesies of life could be dispensed with; and therefore he came in for it all. At Verner's Pride there would have been her servants to share it with him; at Dr. West's there would have been her sisters; at Lady Verner's there was her husband alone. Times upon times Lionel felt inclined to run away; as the disobedient boys run to sea.

The little hint, dropped by Dr. West, touching the past, had not been without its fruits in Sibylla's mind. It lay and smouldered there. Had Lionel been attached to Lucy?--had there been love-scenes, love-making between them? Sibylla asked herself the questions ten times in a day. Now and then she let drop a sharp, acrid bit of venom to him--his "old love, Lucy." Lionel would receive it with impassibility, never answering.

On the day spoken of in the last chapter, when Matthew Frost was dying, she was more ill at ease, more intensely irritable, than usual. Lady Verner had gone with some friends to Heartburg, and was not expected home until night; Decima and Lucy walked out in the afternoon, and Sibylla was alone. Lionel had not been home since he went out in the morning to see Matthew Frost. The fact was Lionel had had a busy day of it: what with old Matthew and what with his conversation with John Massingbird afterwards, certain work which ought to have been done in the morning he had left till the afternoon. It was nothing unusual for him to be out all day; but Sibylla was choosing to make his being out on this day an unusual grievance. As the hours of the afternoon passed on and on, and it grew late, and nobody appeared, she could scarcely suppress her temper, her restlessness. She was a bad one to be alone; had never liked to be alone for five minutes in her life; and thence perhaps the secret of her having made so much of a companion of her maid, Benoite. In point of fact, Sibylla Verner had no resources within herself; and she made up for the want by indulging in her naturally bad temper.

Where were they? Where was Decima? Where was Lucy? Above all, where was Lionel? Sibylla, not being able to answer the questions, suddenly began to get up a pretty little plot of imagination--that Lucy and Lionel were somewhere together. Had Sibylla possessed one of Sam Weller's patent self-acting microscopes, able to afford a view through space and stairs and deal doors, she might have seen Lionel seated alone in the study at Verner's Pride, amidst his leases and papers; and Lucy in Clay Lane, paying visits with Decima from cottage to cottage. Not possessing one of those admirable instruments--if somebody at the West End would but set up a stock of them for sale, what a lot of customers he'd have!--Sibylla was content to cherish the mental view she had conjured up, and to improve upon it. All the afternoon she kept improving upon it, until she worked herself up to that agreeable pitch of distorted excitement when the mind does not know what is real, and what fancy. It was a regular April day; one of sunshine and storm; now the sun shining out bright and clear; now, the rain pattering against the panes; and Sibylla wandered from room to room, upstairs and down, as stormy as the weather.

Had her dreams been types of fact? Upon glancing from the window, during a sharper shower than any they had yet had, she saw her husband coming in at the large gates, Lucy Tempest on his arm, over whom he was holding an umbrella. They were walking slowly; conversing, as it seemed, confidentially. It was quite enough for Mrs. Verner.

But it was a very innocent, accidental meeting, and the confidential conversation was only about the state of poor old Matthew Frost. Lionel had taken Clay Lane on his road home for the purpose of inquiring after old Matthew. There, standing in the kitchen, he found Lucy. Decima was with the old man, and it was uncertain how long she would stay with him; and Lucy, who had no umbrella, was waiting for the shower to be over to get back to Deerham Court. Lionel offered her the shelter of his. As they advanced through the courtyard, Lucy saw Sibylla at the small drawing-room window--the ante-room, as it was called--and nodded a smiling greeting to her. She did not return it, and Lionel saw that his wife looked black as night.

They came in, Lucy untying her bonnet-strings, and addressing Sibylla in a pleasant tone--

"What a sharp storm!" she said. "And I think it means to last, for there seems no sign of its clearing up. I don't know how I should have come, but for Mr. Verner's umbrella."

No reply from Mrs. Verner.

"Decima is with old Matthew Frost," continued Lucy, passing into the drawing-room; "she desired that we would not wait dinner for her."

Then began Sibylla. She turned upon Lionel in a state of perfect fury, her temper, like a torrent, bearing down all before it--all decency, all consideration.

"Where have you been? You and she?"

"Do you allude to Lucy?" he asked, pausing before he replied, and looking at her with surprise. "We have been nowhere. I saw her at old Frost's as I came by, and brought her home."

"It is a falsehood!" raved Sibylla. "You are carrying on a secret intimacy with each other. I have been blind long enough, but--"

Lionel caught her arm, pointing in stern silence to the drawing-room door, which was not closed, his white face betraying his inward agitation.

"She is there!" he whispered. "She can hear you."

But Sibylla's passion was terrible--not to be controlled. All the courtesies of life were lost sight of--its social usages were as nothing. She flung Lionel's hand away from her.

"I hope she can hear me!" broke like a torrent from her trembling lips. "It is time she heard, and others also! I have been blind, I say, long enough. But for papa, I might have gone on in my blindness to the end."

How was he to stop it? That Lucy must hear every word as plainly as he did, he knew; words that fell upon his ear, and blistered them. There was no egress for her--no other door--she was there in a cage, as may be said. He did what was the best to be done under the circumstances; he walked into the presence of Lucy, leaving Sibylla to herself.

At least it might have been the best in some cases. It was not in this. Sibylla, lost in that moment to all sense of the respect due to herself, to her husband, to Lucy, allowed her wild fancies, her passion, to over-master everything; and she followed him in. Her eyes blazing, her cheeks aflame, she planted herself in front of Lucy.

"Are you not ashamed of yourself, Lucy Tempest, to wile my husband from me?"

Lucy looked perfectly aghast. That she thought Mrs. Verner had suddenly gone mad, may be excused to her. A movement of fear escaped her, and she drew involuntary nearer to Lionel, as if for protection.

"No! you shan't go to him! There has been enough of it. You shall not side with him against me! He is my husband! How dare you forget it! You are killing me amongst you."

"I--don't--know--what--you--mean, Mrs. Verner," gasped Lucy, the words coming in jerks from her bloodless lips.

"Can you deny that he cares for you more than he does for me? That you care for him in return? Can not you--"!

"Be silent, Sibylla!" burst forth Lionel. "Do you know that you are speaking to Miss Tempest?"

"I won't be silent!" she reiterated, her voice rising to a scream. "Who is Lucy Tempest that you should care for her? You know you do! and you know that you meant to marry her once! Is it--"

Pushing his wife on a chair, though gently, with one arm, Lionel caught the hand of Lucy, and placed it within the other, his chest heaving with emotion. He led her out of the room and through the ante-room, in silence to the door, halting there. She was shaking all over, and the tears were coursing down her cheeks. He took both her hands in his, his action one of deprecating entreaty, his words falling in the tenderest accents from between his bloodless lips.

"Will you bear for my sake, Lucy? She is my wife. Heaven knows, upon any other I would retort the insult."

How Lucy's heart was wrung!--wrung for him. The insult to herself she could afford to ignore; being innocent, it fell with very slender force; but she felt keenly for his broken peace. Had it been to save her life, she could not help returning the pressure of his hand as she looked up to him her affirmative answer; and she saw no wrong or harm in the pressure. Lionel closed the door upon her, and returned to his wife.

A change had come over Sibylla. She had thrown herself at full length on a sofa, and was beginning to sob. He went up to her, and spoke gravely, not unkindly, his arms folded before him.

"Sibylla, when is this line of conduct to cease? I am nearly wearied out--nearly," he repeated, putting his hand to his brow, "wearied out. If I could bear the exposure for myself, I cannot bear it for my wife."

She rose up and sat down on the sofa facing him. The hectic of her cheeks had turned to scarlet.

"You do love her! You care for her more than you care for me. Can you deny it?"

"What part of my conduct has ever told you so?"

"I don't care for conduct," she fractiously retorted, "I remember what papa said, and that's enough. He said he saw how it was in the old days--that you loved her. What business had you to love her?"

"Stay, Sibylla! Carry your reflections back, and answer yourself. In those old days, when both of you were before me to choose--at any rate, to ask--I chose you, leaving her. Is it not a sufficient answer?"

Sibylla threw back her head on the sofa-frame, and began to cry.

"From the hour that I made you my wife, I have striven to do my duty by you, tenderly as husband can do it. Why do you force me to reiterate this declaration, which I have made before?" he added, his face working with emotion. "Neither by word nor action have I been false to you. I have never, for the briefest moment, been guilty behind your back of that which I would not be guilty of in your presence. No! my allegiance of duty has never swerved from you. So help me Heaven!"

"You can't swear to me that you don't love her?" was Sibylla's retort.

It appeared that he did not intend to swear it. He went and stood against the mantel-piece, in his old favourite attitude, leaning his elbow on it and his face upon his hand--a face that betrayed his inward pain. Sibylla began again: to tantalise him seemed a necessity of her life.

"I might have expected trouble when I consented to marry you. Rachel Frost's fate might have taught me the lesson."

"Stay," said Lionel, lifting his head. "It is not the first hint of the sort that you have given me. Tell me honestly what it is you mean."

"You need not ask; you know already. Rachel owed her disgrace to you."

Lionel paused a moment before he rejoined. When he did, it was in a quiet tone.

"Do you speak from your own opinion?"

"No, I don't. The secret was intrusted to me."

"By whom? You must tell me, Sibylla."

"I don't know why I should not," she slowly said, as if in deliberation. "My husband trusted me with it."

"Do you allude to Frederick Massingbird?" asked Lionel, in a tone whose coldness he could not help.

"Yes, I do. He was my husband," she resentfully added. "One day, on the voyage to Australia, he dropped a word that made me think he knew something about that business of Rachel's, and I teased him to tell me who it was who had played the rogue. He said it was Lionel Verner."

A pause. But for Lionel's admirable disposition, how terribly he might have retorted upon her, knowing what he had learned that day.

"Did he tell you I had completed the roguery by pushing her into the pond?" he inquired.

"I don't know. I don't remember. Perhaps he did."

"And--doubting it--you could marry me!" quietly remarked Lionel.

She made no answer.

"Let me set you right on that point once for all, then," he continued. "I was innocent as you. I had nothing to do with it. Rachel and her father were held in too great respect by my uncle--nay, by me, I may add--for me to offer her anything but respect. You were misinformed, Sibylla."

She laughed scornfully. "It is easy to say so."

"As it was for Frederick Massingbird to say to you what he did."

"If it came to the choice," she retorted, "I'd rather believe him than you."

Bitter aggravation lay in her tone, bitter aggravation in her gesture. Was Lionel tempted to forget himself?--to set her right? If so, he beat the temptation down. All men would not have been so forbearing.

"Sibylla, I have told you truth," he simply said.

"Which is as much as to say that Fred told----" she was vehemently beginning when the words were stopped by the entrance of John Massingbird. John, caught in the shower near Deerham Court, made no scruple of running to it for shelter, and was in time to witness Sibylla's angry tones and inflamed face.

What precisely happened Lionel could never afterwards recall. He remembered John's free and easy salutation, "What's the row?"--he remembered Sibylla's torrent of words in answer. As little given to reticence or delicacy in the presence of her cousin, as she had been in that of Lucy Tempest, she renewed her accusation of her husband with regard to Rachel: she called on him--John--to bear testimony that Fred was truthful. And Lionel remembered little more until he saw Sibylla lying back gasping, the blood pouring from her mouth.

John Massingbird--perhaps in his eagerness to contradict her as much as in his regard to make known the truth--had answered her all too effectually before Lionel could stop him. Words that burned into the brain of Sibylla Verner, and turned the current of her life's pulses.

It was her husband of that voyage, Frederick Massingbird, who had brought the evil upon Rachel, who had been with her by the pond that night.

As the words left John Massingbird's lips, she rose up, and stood staring at him. Presently she essayed to speak, but not a sound issued from her drawn lips. Whether passion impeded her utterance, or startled dismay, or whether it may have been any physical impediment, it was evident that she could not get the words out.

Fighting her hands on the empty air, fighting for breath or for speech, so she remained for a passing space; and then the blood began to trickle from her mouth. The excitement had caused her to burst a blood-vessel.

Lionel crossed over to her: her best support. He held her in his arms, tenderly and considerately, as though she had never given him an unwifely word. Stretching out his other hand to the bell, he rang it loudly. And then he looked at Mr. Massingbird.

"Run for your life," he whispered. "Get Jan here."

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LXXXII. TRYING ON WREATHS

The months went on, and Deerham was in a commotion: not the Clay Lane part of it, of whom I think you have mostly heard, but that more refined if less useful portion, represented by Lady Verner, the Elmsleys, the Bitterworths, and other of the aristocracy congregating in its environs.

Summer had long come in, and was now on the wane; and Sir Edmund Hautley, the only son and heir of Sir Rufus, was expected home. He had quitted the service, had made the overland route, and was now halting in Paris; but the day of his arrival at Deerham Hall was fixed. And this caused the commotion: for it had pleased Miss Hautley to determine to welcome him with a fete and ball, the like of which for splendour had never been heard of in the county.

Miss Hautley was a little given to have an opinion of her own, and to hold to it. Sir Rufus had been the same. Their friends called it firmness; their enemies obstinacy. The only sister of Sir Rufus, not cordial with him during his life, she had invaded the Hall as soon as the life had left him, quitting her own comfortable and substantial residence to do it, and persisted in taking up her abode there until Sir Edmund should return; as she was persisting now in giving this fete in honour of it. In vain those who deemed themselves privileged to speak, pointed out to Miss Hautley that a fete might be considered out of place, given before Sir Rufus had been dead a twelvemonth, and that Sir Edmund might deem it so; furthermore, that Sir Edmund might prefer to find quietness on his arrival instead of a crowd.

They might as well have talked to the wind, for all the impression it made upon Miss Hautley. The preparations for the gathering went on quickly, the invitations had gone out, and Deerham's head was turned. Those who did not get invitations were ready to swallow up those who did. Miss Hautley was as exclusive as ever proud old Sir Rufus had been, and many were left out who thought they might have been invited. Amongst others, the Misses West thought so, especially as one card had gone to their house--for Mr. Jan Verner.

Two cards had been left at Deerham Court. For Lady and Miss Verner: for Mr. and Mrs. Verner. By some strange oversight, Miss Tempest was omitted. That it was a simple oversight there was no doubt; and so it turned out to be; for, after the fete was over, reserved old Miss Hautley condescended to explain that it was, and to apologise; but this is dating forward. It was not known to be an oversight when the cards arrived, and Lady Verner felt inclined to resent it. She hesitated whether to treat it resentfully and stay away herself; or to take no notice of it, further than by conveying Lucy to the Hall in place of Decima.

Lucy laughed. She did not seem to care at all for the omission; but as to going without the invitation, or in anybody's place, she would not hear of it.

"Decima will not mind staying at home," said Lady Verner. "She never cares to go out. You will not care to go, will you, Decima?"

An unwonted flush of crimson rose to Decima's usually calm face. "I should like to go to this, mamma, as Miss Hautley has invited me."

"Like to go to it!" repeated Lady Verner. "Are you growing capricious, Decima? You generally profess to 'like' to stay at home."

"I would rather go this time, if you have no objection," was the quiet answer of Decima.

"Dear Lady Verner, if Decima remained at home ever so, I should not go," interposed Lucy. "Only fancy my intruding there without an invitation! Miss Hautley might order me out again."

"It is well to make a joke of it, Lucy, when I am vexed," said Lady Verner. "I dare say it is only a mistake; but I don't like such mistakes."

"I dare say it is nothing else," replied Lucy, laughing. "But as to making my appearance there under the circumstances, I could not really do it to oblige even you, Lady Verner. And I would just as soon be at home."

Lady Verner resigned herself to the decision, but she did not look pleased.

"It is to be I and Decima, then. Lionel," glancing across the table at him--"you will accompany me. I cannot go without you."

It was at the luncheon table they were discussing this; a meal of which Lionel rarely partook; in fact, he was rarely at home to partake of it; but he happened to be there to-day. Sibylla was present. Recovered from the accident--if it may be so called--of the breaking of the blood-vessel; she had appeared to grow stronger and better with the summer weather. Jan knew the improvement was all deceit, and told them so; told her so; that the very greatest caution was necessary, if she would avert a second similar attack; in fact, half the time of Jan's visits at Deerham Court was spent in enjoining perfect tranquillity on Sibylla.

But she was so obstinate! She would not keep herself quiet; she would go out; she would wear those thin summer dresses, low, in the evening. She is wearing a delicate muslin now, as she sits by Lady Verner, and her blue eyes are suspiciously bright, and her cheeks are suspiciously hectic, and the old laboured breath can be seen through the muslin moving her chest up and down, as it used to be seen--a lovely vision still, with her golden hair clustering about her; but her hands are hot and trembling, and her frame is painfully thin. Certainly she does not look fit to enter upon evening gaiety, and Lady Verner in addressing her son, "You will go with me, Lionel," proved that she never so much as cast a thought to the improbability that Sibylla would venture thither.

"If--you--particularly wish it, mother," was Lionel's reply, spoken with hesitation.

"Do you not wish to go?" rejoined Lady Verner.

"I would very much prefer not," he replied.

"Nonsense, Lionel! I don't think you have gone out once since you left Verner's Pride. Staying at home won't mend matters. I wish you to go with me; I shall make a point of it."

Lady Verner spoke with some irritation, and Lionel said no more. He supposed he must acquiesce.

It was no long-timed invitation of weeks. The cards arrived on the Monday, and the fete was for the following Thursday. Lionel thought no more about it; he was not as the ladies, whose toilettes would take all of that time to prepare. On the Wednesday, Decima took him aside.

"Lionel, do you know that Mrs. Verner intends to go to-morrow evening?"

Lionel paused; paused from surprise.

"You must be mistaken, Decima. She sent a refusal."

"I fancy that she did not send a refusal. And I feel sure she is thinking of going. You will not judge that I am unwarrantably interfering," Decima added in a tone of deprecation. "I would not do such a thing. But I thought it was right to apprise you of this. She is not well enough to go out."

With a pressure of the hand on his sister's shoulder, and a few muttered words of dismay, which she did not catch, Lionel sought his wife. No need of questioning, to confirm the truth of what Decima had said. Sibylla was figuring off before the glass, after the manner of her girlish days, with a wreath of white flowers on her head. It was her own sitting-room, the pretty room of the blue and white panels; and the tables and chairs were laden with other wreaths, with various head ornaments. She was trying their different effects, when, on turning round her head as the door opened, she saw it was her husband. His presence did not appear to discompose her, and she continued to place the wreath to her satisfaction, pulling it here and there with her thin and trembling hands.

"What are you doing?" asked Lionel.

"Trying on wreaths," she replied.

"So I perceive. But why?"

"To see which suits me best. This looks too white for me, does it not?" she added, turning her countenance towards him.

If to be the same hue as the complexion was "too white," it certainly did look so. The dead white of the roses was not more utterly colourless than Sibylla's face. She was like a ghost; she often looked so now.

"Sibylla," he said, without answering her question, "you are surely not thinking of going to Sir Edmund's to-morrow night?"

"Yes, I am."

"You said you would write a refusal!"

"I know I said it. I saw how cross-grained you were going to be over it, and that's why I said it to you. I accepted the invitation."

"But, my dear, you must not go!"

Sibylla was flinging off the white wreath, and taking up a pink one, which she began to fix in her hair. She did not answer.

"After all," deliberated she, "I have a great mind to wear pearls. Not a wreath at all."

"Sibylla! I say you must not go."

"Now, Lionel, it is of no use your talking. I have made up my mind to go; I did at first; and go I shall. Don't you remember," she continued, turning her face from the glass towards him, her careless tone changing for one of sharpness, "that papa said I must not be crossed?"

"But you are not in a state to go out," remonstrated Lionel. "Jan forbids it utterly."

"Jan? Jan's in your pay. He says what you tell him to say."

"Child, how can you give utterance to such things?" he asked in a tone of emotion. "When Jan interdicts your going out he has only your welfare at heart. And you know that I have it. Evening air and scenes of excitement are equally pernicious for you."

"I shall go," returned Sibylla. "You are going, you know," she resentfully said. "I wonder you don't propose that I shall be locked up at home in a dark closet, while you are there, dancing."

A moment's deliberation in his mind, and a rapid resolution. "I shall not go, Sibylla," he rejoined. "I shall stay at home with you."

"Who says you are going to stay at home?"

"I say it myself. I intend to do so. I shall do so."

"Oh! Since when, pray, have you come to that decision?"

Had she not the penetration to see that he had come to it then--then, as he talked to her; that he had come to it for her sake? That she should not have it to say he went out while she was at home. Perhaps she did see it; but it was nearly impossible to Sibylla not to indulge in bitter, aggravating retorts.

"I understand!" she continued, throwing up her head with an air of supreme scorn. "Thank you, don't trouble. I am not too ill to stoop, ill as you wish to make me out to be."

In displacing the wreath on her head to a different position, she had let it fall. Lionel's stooping to pick it up had called forth the last remark. As he handed it to her he took her hand.

"Sibylla, promise me to think no more of this. Do give it up."

"I won't give it up," she vehemently answered. "I shall go. And, what's more, I shall dance."

Lionel quitted her and sought his mother. Lady Verner was not very well that afternoon, and was keeping her room. He found her in an invalid chair.

"Mother, I have come to tell you that I cannot accompany you to-morrow evening," he said. "You must please excuse me."

"Why so?" asked Lady Verner.

"I would so very much rather not go," he answered. "Besides, I do not care to leave Sibylla."

Lady Verner made no observation for a few moments. A carious smile, almost a pitying smile, was hovering on her lips.

"Lionel, you are a model husband. Your father was not a bad one, as husbands go; but--he would not have bent his neck to such treatment from me, as you take from Mrs. Verner."

"No?" returned Lionel, with good humour.

"It is not right of you, Lionel, to leave me to go alone, with only Decima."

"Let Jan accompany you, mother."

"Jan!" uttered Lady Verner, in the very extreme of astonishment. "I should be surprised to see Jan attempt to enter such a scene. Jan! I don't suppose he possesses a fit coat and waistcoat."

Lionel smiled, quitted his mother, and bent his steps towards Jan Verner's.

Not to solicit Jan's attendance upon Lady Verner to the festival scene, or to make close inquiries as to the state of Jan's wardrobe. No; Lionel had a more serious motive for his visit.

He found Jan and Master Cheese enjoying a sort of battle. The surgery looked as if it had been turned upside down, so much confusion reigned. White earthenware vessels of every shape and form, glass jars, huge cylinders, brass pots, metal pans, were scattered about in inextricable confusion. Master Cheese had recently got up a taste for chemical experiments, in which it appeared necessary to call into requisition an unlimited quantity of accessories in the apparatus line. He had been entering upon an experiment that afternoon, when Jan came unexpectedly in, and caught him.

Not for the litter and confusion was Jan displeased, but because he found that Master Cheese had so bungled chemical properties in his head, so confounded one dangerous substance with another, that, five minutes later, the result would probably have been the blowing off of the surgery roof, and Master Cheese and his vessels with it. Jan was giving him a sharp and decisive word, not to attempt anything of the sort again, until he could bring more correct knowledge to bear upon it, when Lionel interrupted them.

"I want to speak to you, Jan," he said.

"Here, you be off, and wash the powder from your hands," cried Jan to Master Cheese, who was looking ruefully cross. "I'll put the things straight."

The young gentleman departed. Lionel sat down on the only chair he could see--one probably kept for the accommodation of patients who might want a few teeth drawn. Jan was rapidly reducing the place to order.

"What is it, Lionel?" he asked, when it was pretty clear.

"Jan, you must see Sibylla. She wants to go to Deerham Hall to-morrow night."

"She can't go," replied Jan. "Nonsense."

"But she says she will go."

Jan leaned his long body over the counter, and brought his face nearly on a level with Lionel's, speaking slowly and impressively--

"If she goes, Lionel, it will kill her."

Lionel rose to depart. He was on his way to Verner's Pride. "I called in to tell you this, Jan, and to ask you to step up and remonstrate with her."

"Very well," said Jan. "Mark me, Lionel, she must not go. And if there's no other way of keeping her away, you, her husband, must forbid it. A little more excitement than usual, and there'll be another vessel of the lungs ruptured. If that happens, nothing can save her life. Keep her at home, by force, if necessary: any way, keep her."

"And what of the excitement that that will cause?" questioned Lionel. "It may be as fatal as the other."

"I don't know," returned Jan, speaking for once in his life testily, in the vexation the difficulty brought him. "My belief is that Sibylla's mad. She'd never be so stupid, were she sane."

"Go to her, and see what you can do," concluded Lionel, as he turned away.

Jan proceeded to Deerham Court, and had an interview with Mrs. Verner. It was not of a very agreeable nature, neither did much satisfaction ensue from it. After a few recriminating retorts to Jan's arguments, which he received as equably as though they had been compliments, Sibylla subsided into sullen silence. And when Jan left, he could not tell whether she still persisted in her project, or whether she gave it up.

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LXXXIII. WELL-NIGH WEARIED OUT

Lionel returned late in the evening; he had been detained at Verner's Pride. Sibylla appeared sullen still. She was in her own sitting-room, upstairs, and Lucy was bearing her company. Decima was in Lady Verner's chamber.

"Have you had any dinner?" inquired Lucy. She did not ask. She would not have asked had he been starving.

"I took a bit with John Massingbird," he replied. "Is my mother better, do you know?"

"Not much, I think," said Lucy. "Decima is sitting with her."

Lionel stood in his old attitude, his elbow on the mantel-piece by his wife's side, looking down at her. Her eyes were suspiciously bright, her cheeks now shone with their most crimson hectic. It was often the case at this, the twilight hour of the evening. She wore a low dress, and the gold chain on her neck rose and fell with every breath. Lucy's neck was uncovered, too: a fair, pretty neck; one that did not give you the shudders when looked at as poor Sibylla's did. Sibylla leaned back on the cushions of her chair, toying with a fragile hand-screen of feathers; Lucy, sitting on the opposite side, had been reading; but she laid the book down when Lionel entered.

"John Massingbird desired me to ask you, Sibylla, if he should send you the first plate of grapes they cut."

"I'd rather have the first bag of walnuts they shake," answered Sibylla. "I never cared for grapes."

"He can send you both," said Lionel; but an uncomfortable, dim recollection came over him, of Jan's having told her she must not eat walnuts. For Jan to tell her not to do a thing, however--or, in fact, for anybody else--was the sure signal for Sibylla to do it.

"Does John Massingbird intend to go to-morrow evening?" inquired Sibylla.

"To Deerham Hall, do you mean? John Massingbird has not received an invitation."

"What's that for?" quickly asked Sibylla.

"Some whim of Miss Hautley's, I suppose. The cards have been issued very partially. John says it is just as well he did not get one, for he should either not have responded to it, or else made his appearance there with his clay pipe."

Lucy laughed.

"He is glad to be left out," continued Lionel. "It saves him the trouble of a refusal. I don't think any ball would get John Massingbird to it; unless he could be received in what he calls his diggings' toggery."

"I'd not have gone with him; I don't like him well enough," resentfully spoke Sibylla; "but as he is not going, he can let me have the loan of my own carriage--at least, the carriage that was my own. I dislike those old, hired things."

The words struck on Lionel like a knell. He foresaw trouble. "Sibylla," he gravely said, "I have been speaking to Jan. He----"

"Yes, you have!" she vehemently interrupted, her pent-up anger bursting forth. "You went to him, and sent him here, and told him what to say--all on purpose to cross me. It is wicked of you to be so jealous of my having a little pleasure."

"Jealous of--I don't understand you, Sibylla."

"You won't understand me, you mean. Never mind, never mind!"

"Sibylla," he said, bending his head slightly towards her, and speaking in low, persuasive accents, "I cannot let you go to-morrow night. If I cared for you less, I might suffer you to risk it. I have given up going, and----"

"You never meant to go," she interrupted.

"Yes, I did; to please my mother. But that is of no consequence----"

"I tell you, you never meant to go, Lionel Verner!" she passionately burst forth, her cheeks flaming. "You are stopping at home on purpose to be with Lucy Tempest--an arranged plan between you and her. Her society is more to you than any you'd find at Deerham Hall."

Lucy looked up with a start--a sort of shiver--her sweet, brown eyes open with innocent wonder. Then the full sense of the words appeared to penetrate to her, and her face grew hot with a glowing, scarlet flush. She said nothing. She rose quietly, not hurriedly, took up the book she had put on the table, and quietly left the room.

Lionel's face was glowing, too--glowing with the red blood of indignation. He bit his lips for calmness, leaving the mark there for hours. He strove manfully with his angry spirit: it was rising up to open rebellion. A minute, and the composure of self-control came to him. He stood before his wife, his arms folded.

"You are my wife," he said. "I am bound to defend, to excuse you so far as I may; but these insults to Lucy Tempest I cannot excuse. She is the daughter of my dead father's dearest friend; she is living here under the protection of my mother, and it is incumbent upon me to put a stop to these scenes, so far as she is concerned. If I cannot do it in one way, I must in another."

"You know she and you would like to stay at home together--and get the rest of us out."

"Be silent!" he said in a sterner tone than he had ever used to her. "You cannot reflect upon what you are saying. Accuse me as you please; I will bear it patiently, if I can; but Miss Tempest must be spared. You know how utterly unfounded are such thoughts; you know that she is refined, gentle, single-hearted; that all her thoughts to you, as my wife, are those of friendship and kindness. What would my mother think were she to hear this?"

Sibylla made no reply.

"You have never seen a look or heard a word pass between me and Lucy Tempest that was not of the most open nature, entirely compatible with her position, that of a modest and refined gentlewoman, and of mine, as your husband. I think you must be mad, Sibylla."

The words Jan had used. If such temperaments do not deserve the name of madness, they are near akin to it. Lionel spoke with emotion: it all but over-mastered him, and he went back to his place by the mantel-piece, his chest heaving.

"I shall leave this residence as speedily as maybe," he said, "giving some trivial excuse to my mother for the step. I see no other way to put an end to this."

Sibylla, her mood changing, burst into tears. "I don't want to leave it," she said quite in a humble tone.

He was not inclined for argument. He had rapidly made his mind up, believing it was the only course open to him. He must go away with his wife, and so leave the house in peace. Saying something to that effect, he quitted the room, leaving Sibylla sobbing; fractiously on the pillow of the chair.

He went down to the drawing-room. He did not care where he went, or what became of him. It is an unhappy thing when affairs grow to that miserable pitch, that the mind has neither ease nor comfort anywhere. At the first moment of entering, he thought the room was empty, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the dusk, he discerned the form of some one standing at the distant window. It was Lucy Tempest. Lionel went straight up to her. He felt that some apology or notice from him was due. She was crying bitterly, and turned to him before he could speak.

"Mr. Verner, I feel my position keenly. I would not remain here to make things unpleasant to your wife for the whole world. But I cannot help myself. I have nowhere to go until papa shall return to Europe."

"Lucy, let me say a word to you," he whispered, his tones impeded, his breath coming thick and fast from his hot and crimsoned lips. "There are moments in a man's lifetime when he must be true; when the artificial gloss thrown on social intercourse fades out of sight. This is one."

Her tears fell more quietly. "I am so very sorry!" she continued to murmur.

"Were you other than what you are I might meet you with some of this artifice; I might pretend not to know aught of what has been said; I might attempt some elaborate apology. It would be worse than folly from me to you. Let me tell you that could I have shielded you from this insult with my life, I would have done it."

"Yes, yes," she hurriedly answered.

"You will not mistake me. As the daughter of my father's dearest friend, as my mother's honoured guest, I speak to you. I speak to you as one whom I am bound to protect from harm and insult, only in a less degree than I would protect my wife. You will do me the justice to believe it."

"I know it. Indeed I do not blame you."

"Lucy, I would have prevented this, had it been in my power. But it was not. I could not help it. All I can do is to take steps that it shall not occur again in the future. I scarcely know what I am saying to you. My life, what with one thing and another, is well-nigh wearied out."

Lucy had long seen that. But she did not say so.

"It will not be long now before papa is at home," she answered, "and then I shall leave Deerham Court free. Thank you for speaking to me," she simply said, as she was turning to leave the room.

He took both her hands in his; he drew her nearer to him, his head was bent down to hers, his whole frame shook with emotion. Was he tempted to take a caress from her sweet face, as he had taken it years ago? Perhaps he was. But Lionel Verner was not one to lose his self-control where there was real necessity for his retaining it. His position was different now from what it had been then; and, if the temptation was strong, it was kept in check, and Lucy never knew it had been there.

"You will forget it for my sake, Lucy? You will not resent it upon her? She is very ill."

"It is what I wish to do," she gently said. "I do not know what foolish things I might not say, were I suffering like Mrs. Verner."

"God bless you for ever, Lucy!" he murmured. "May your future life be more fortunate than mine is."

Relinquishing her hands, he watched her disappear through the darkness of the room. She was dearer to him than his own life; he loved her better than all earthly things. That the knowledge was all too palpable then, he was bitterly feeling, and he could not suppress it. He could neither suppress the knowledge, nor the fact; it had been very present with him for long and long. He could not help it, as he said. He believed, in his honest heart, that he had not encouraged the passion; that it had taken root and spread unconsciously to himself. He would have driven it away, had it been in his power; he would drive it away now, could he do it by any amount of energy or will. But it could not be. And Lionel Verner leaned in the dark there against the window-frame, resolving to do as he had done before--had done all along. To suppress it ever; to ignore it so far as might be; and to do his duty as honestly and lovingly by his wife, as though the love were not there.

He had been enabled to do this hitherto, and he would still; God helping him.

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LXXXIV. GOING TO THE BALL

It was the day of the fete at Deerham Hall. Sibylla awoke in an amiable mood, unusually so for her; and Lionel, as he dressed, talked to her gravely and kindly, urging upon her the necessity of relinquishing her determination to be present. It appeared that she was also reasonable that morning, as well as amiable, for she listened to him, and at length voluntarily said she would think no more about it.

"But you must afford me some treat in place of it," she immediately added. "Will you promise to take me for a whole day next week to Heartburg?"

"Willingly," replied Lionel. "There is to be a morning concert at Heartburg next Tuesday. If you feel well enough, we can attend that."

He did not think morning concerts, and the fatigue they sometimes entail, particularly desirable things for his wife; but, compared with hot ballrooms and the night air, they seemed innocuous. Sibylla liked morning concerts uncommonly, nearly as much as Master Cheese liked tarts; she liked anything that afforded an apology for dress and display.

"Mind, Lionel, you promise to take me," she reiterated.

"Yes. Provided you feel equal to going."

Sibylla took breakfast in her own room, according to custom. Formerly, she had done so through idleness: now, she was really not well enough to rise early. Lionel, when he joined the family breakfast table, announced the news; announced it in his own characteristic manner.

"Sibylla thinks, after all, that she will be better at home this evening," he said. "I am glad she has so decided it."

"Her senses have come to her, have they?" remarked Lady Verner.

He made no reply. He never did make a reply to any shaft lanced by Lady Verner at his wife. My lady was sparing of her shafts in a general way since they had resided with her, but she did throw one out now and then.

"You will go with me then, Lionel?"

He shook his head, telling his mother she must excuse him: it was not his intention to be present.

Sibylla continued in a remarkably quiet, not to say affable, temper all day. Lionel was out, but returned home to dinner. By and by Lady Verner and Decima retired to dress. Lucy went up with Decima, and Lionel remained with his wife.

When they came down, Sibylla was asleep on the sofa. Lady Verner wore some of the magnificent and yet quiet attire that had pertained to her gayer days; Decima was in white. Lionel put on his hat, and went out to hand them into the carriage that waited. As he did so, the aspect of his sister's face struck him.

"What is the matter, Decima?" he exclaimed. "You are looking perfectly white."

She only smiled in answer; a forced, unnatural smile, as it appeared to Lionel. But he said no more; he thought the white hue might be only the shade cast by the moonlight. Lady Verner looked from the carriage to ask a question.

"Is Jan really going, do you know, Lionel? Lucy says she thinks he is. I do hope and trust that he will be attired like a Christian, if he is absurd enough to appear."

"I think I'll go and see," answered Lionel, a smile crossing his face. "Take care, Catherine!"

Old Catherine, who had come out with shawls, was dangerously near the wheels--and the horses were on the point of starting. She stepped back, and the carriage drove on.

The bustle had aroused Sibylla. She rose to look from the window; saw the carriage depart, saw Catherine come in, saw Lionel walk away towards Deerham. It was all clear in the moonlight. Lucy Tempest was looking from the other window.

"What a lovely night it is!" Lucy exclaimed. "I should not mind a drive of ten miles, such a night as this."

"And yet they choose to say that going out would hurt me!" spoke Sibylla in a resentful tone. "They do it on purpose to vex me."

Lucy chose to ignore the subject; it was not her business to enter into it one way or the other. She felt that Mrs. Verner had done perfectly right in remaining at home; that her strength would have been found unequal to support the heat and excitement of a ballroom, following on the night air of the transit to it. Lovely as the night was, it was cold: for some few evenings past the gardeners had complained of frost.

Lucy drew from the window with a half sigh; it seemed almost a pity to shut out that pleasant moonlight: turned and stirred the fire into a blaze. Sibylla's chilly nature caused them to enter upon evening fires before other people thought of them.

"Shall I ring for lights, Mrs. Verner?"

"I suppose it's time, and past time," was Sibylla's answer. "I must have been asleep ever so long."

Catherine brought them in. The man-servant had gone in attendance on his mistress. The moderate household of Lady Verner consisted now but of four domestics; Therese, Catherine, the cook, and the man.

"Shall I bring tea in, Miss Lucy?" asked Catherine.

Lucy turned her eyes on Sibylla. "Would you like tea now, Mrs. Verner?"

"No," answered Sibylla. "Not yet."

She left the room as she spoke. Catherine, who had been lowering the curtains, followed next. Lucy drew a chair to the fire, sat down and fell into a reverie.

She was aroused by the door opening again. It proved to be Catherine with the tea-things. "I thought I'd bring them in, and then they'll be ready," remarked she. "You can please to ring, miss, when you want the urn."

Lucy simply nodded, and Catherine returned to the kitchen, to enjoy a social tete-a-tete supper with the cook. Mademoiselle Therese, taking advantage of her mistress's absence, had gone out for the rest of the evening. The two servants sat on and chatted together: so long, that Catherine openly wondered at the urn's not being called for.

"They must both have gone to sleep, I should think," quoth she. "Miss Lucy over the fire in the sitting-room, and Mr. Lionel's wife over hers, upstairs. I have not heard her come down----"

Catherine stopped. The cook had started up, her eyes fixed on the doorway. Catherine, whose back was towards it, hastily turned; and an involuntary exclamation broke from her lips.

Standing there was Mrs. Verner, looking like--like a bedecked skeleton. She was in fairy attire. A gossamer robe of white with shining ornaments, and a wreath that seemed to sparkle with glittering dewdrops on her head. But her arms were thin, wasted; and the bones of her poor neck seemed to rattle as they heaved painfully under the gems clasped round it: and her face had not so much as the faintest tinge of hectic, but was utterly colourless--worse, it was wan, ghastly. A distressing sight to look upon, was she, as she stood there; she and the festal attire were so completely at variance. She came forward, before the servants could recover from their astonishment.

"Where's Richard?" she asked, speaking in a low, subdued tone, as if fearing to be heard--though there was nobody in the house to hear her, save Lucy Tempest. And probably it was from her wish to avoid all attention to her proceeding, that caused her to come down stealthily to the servants, instead of ringing for them.

"Richard is not come back, ma'am," answered Catherine. "We have just been saying that he'll most likely stop up there with the Hall servants until my lady returns."

"Not back!" echoed Sibylla. "Cook, you must go out for me," she imperiously added, after a moment's pause. "Go to Dean's and order one of their flys here directly. Wait, and come back with it."

The cook, a simple sort of young woman, save in her own special department, did not demur, or appear to question in the least the expediency of the order. Catherine questioned it very much indeed; but while she hesitated what to do, whether to stop the cook, or to venture on a remonstrance to Mrs. Verner, or to appeal to Miss Tempest to do it, the cook was gone. Servants are not particular in country places, and the girl went straight out as she was, not staying to put anything on.

Sibylla appeared to be shivering. She took up her place right in front of the fire, holding out her hands to the blaze. Her teeth chattered, her whole frame trembled.

"The fire in my dressing-room went out," she remarked. "Take care that you make up a large one by the time I return."

"You'll never go, ma'am!" cried old Catherine, breaking through her reserve. "You are not strong enough."

"Mind your own business," sharply retorted Sibylla. "Do you think I don't know my own feelings, whether I am strong, or whether I am not? I am as strong as you."

Catherine dared no more. Sibylla cowered over the fire, her head turned sideways as she glanced on the table.

"What's that?" she suddenly cried, pointing to the contents of a jug.

"It's beer, ma'am," answered Catherine. "That stupid girl drew as much as if Richard and Therese had been at home. Maybe Therese will be in yet for supper."

"Give me a glass of it. I am thirsty."

Again old Catherine hesitated. Malt liquor had been expressly forbidden to Mrs. Verner. It made her cough frightfully.

"You know, ma'am, the doctors have said----"

"Will you hold your tongue? And give me what I require? You are as bad as Mr. Verner."

Catherine reached a tumbler, poured it half full, and handed it. Mrs. Verner did not take it.

"Fill it," she said.

So old Catherine, much against her will, had to fill it, and Sibylla drained the glass to the very bottom. In truth, she was continually thirsty; she seemed to have a perpetual inward fever upon her. Her shoulders were shivering as she set down the glass.

"Go and find my opera cloak, Catherine. It must have dropped on the stairs, I know I put it on as I left my room."

Catherine quitted the kitchen on the errand. She would have liked to close the door after her; but it happened to be pushed quite back with a chair against it; and the pointedly shutting it might have been noticed by Sibylla. She found the opera cloak lying on the landing, near Sibylla's bedroom door. Catching it up, she slipped off her shoes at the same moment, stole down noiselessly, and went into the presence of Miss Tempest.

Lucy looked astonished. She sat at the table reading, waiting with all patience the entrance of Sibylla, ere she made tea. To see Catherine steal in covertly with her finger to her lips, excited her wonder.

"Miss Lucy, she's going to the ball," was the old servant's salutation, as she approached close to Lucy, and spoke in the faintest whisper. "She is shivering over the kitchen fire, with hardly a bit of gown to her back, so far as warmth goes. Here's her opera cloak: she dropped it coming down. Cook's gone out for a fly."

Lucy felt startled. "Do you mean Mrs. Verner?"

"Why, of course I do," answered Catherine. "She has been upstairs all this while, and has dressed herself alone. She must not go, Miss Lucy. She's looking like a ghost. What will Mr. Verner say to us if we let her! It may just be her death."

Lucy clasped her hands in her consternation. "Catherine, what can we do? We have no influence over her. She would not listen to us for a moment. If we could but find Mr. Verner!"

"He was going round to Mr. Jan's when my lady drove off. I heard him say it. Miss Lucy, I can't go after him; she'd find me out; I can't leave her, or leave the house. But he ought to be got here."

Did the woman's words point to the suggestion that Lucy should go? Lucy may have thought it; or, perhaps, she entered on the suggestion of her own accord.

"I will go, Catherine," she whispered. "I don't mind it. It is nearly as light as day outside, and I shall soon be at Mr. Jan's. You go back to Mrs. Verner."

Feeling that there was not a moment to be lost; feeling that Mrs. Verner ought to be stopped at all hazards for her own sake, Lucy caught up a shawl and a green sun-bonnet of Lady Verner's that happened to be in the hall, and, thus hastily attired, went out. Speeding swiftly along the moonlit road, she soon gained Deerham, and turned to the house of Dr. West. A light in the surgery guided her at once to that room.

But the light was there alone. Nobody was present to reap its benefit or to answer intruders. Lucy knocked pretty loudly on the counter without bringing forth any result. Apparently she was not heard; perhaps from the fact that the sound was drowned in the noise of some fizzing and popping which seemed to be going on in the next room--Jan's bedroom. Her consideration for Mrs. Verner put ceremony out of the question; in fact, Lucy was not given at the best of times to stand much upon that; and she stepped round the counter, and knocked briskly at the door. Possibly Lionel might be in there with Jan.

Lionel was not there; nor Jan either. The door was gingerly opened about two inches by Master Cheese, who was enveloped in a great white apron and white oversleeves. His face looked red and confused as it peeped out, as does that of one who is caught at some forbidden mischief; and Lucy obtained sight of a perfect mass of vessels, brass, earthenware, glass, and other things, with which the room was strewed. In point of fact, Master Cheese, believing he was safe from Jan's superintendence for some hours, had seized upon the occasion to plunge into his forbidden chemical researches again, and had taken French leave to use Jan's bedroom for the purpose, the surgery being limited for space.

"What do you want?" cried he roughly, staring at Lucy.

"Is Mr. Verner here?" she asked.

Then Master Cheese knew the voice, and condescended a sort of apology for his abruptness.

"I didn't know you, Miss Tempest, in that fright of a bonnet," said he, walking forth and closing the bedroom door behind him. "Mr. Verner's not here."

"Do you happen to know where he is?" asked Lucy. "He said he was coming here, an hour ago."

"So he did come here; and saw Jan. Jan's gone to the ball. And Miss Deb and Miss Amilly are gone to a party at Heartburg."

"Is he?" returned Lucy, referring to Jan, and surprised to hear the news; balls not being in Jan's line.

"I can't make it out," remarked Master Cheese. "He and Sir Edmund used to be cronies, I think; so I suppose that has taken him. But I am glad they are all off: it gives me a whole evening to myself. He and Mr. Verner went away together."

"I wish very much to find Mr. Verner," said Lucy. "It is of great consequence that I should see him. I suppose--you--could not--go and look for him, Master Cheese?" she added pleadingly.

"Couldn't do it," responded Master Cheese, thinking of his forbidden chemicals. "When Jan's away I am chief, you know, Miss Tempest. Some cases of broken legs may be brought in, for anything I can tell."

Lucy wished him good-night and turned away. She hesitated at the corner of the street, gazing up and down. To start on a search for Lionel appeared to be as hopeful a project as that search renowned in proverb--the looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. The custom in Deerham was not to light the lamps on a moonlight night, so the street, as Lucy glanced on either side, lay white and quiet; no glare to disturb its peace, save for some shops, not yet closed. Mrs. Duff's, opposite, was among the latter catalogue: and her son, Mr. Dan, appeared to be taking a little tumbling recreation on the flags before the bay-window. Lucy crossed over to him.

"Dan," said she, "do you happen to have seen Mr. Verner pass lately?"

Dan, just then on his head, turned himself upside down, and alighted on his feet, humble and subdued, "Please, miss, I see'd him awhile agone along of Mr. Jan," was the answer, pulling his hair by way of salutation. "They went that way. Mr. Jan was all in black, he was."

The boy pointed towards Deerham Court, towards Deerham Hall. There was little doubt that Jan was then on his way to the latter. But the question for Lucy was--where had Lionel gone?

She could not tell; the very speculation upon it was unprofitable, since it could lead to no certainty. Lucy turned homewards, walking quickly.

She had got past the houses, when she discerned before her in the distance, a form which instinct--perhaps some dearer feeling told her was that of him of whom she was in search. He was walking with a slow, leisurely step towards his home. Lucy's heart gave a bound--that it did so still at his sight, as it had done in the earlier days, was no fault of hers: Heaven knew that she had striven and prayed against it. When she caught him up she was out of breath, so swiftly had she sped.

"Lucy!" he exclaimed. "Lucy! What do you do here?"

"I came out to look for you," she simply said; "there was nobody else at home to come. I went to Jan's, thinking you might be there. Mrs. Verner has dressed herself to go to Sir Edmund's. You may be in time to stop her, if you make haste."

With a half-uttered exclamation, Lionel was speeding off, when he appeared to remember Lucy. He turned to take her with him.

"No," said Lucy, stopping. "I could not go as quickly as you; and a minute, more or less, may make all the difference. There is nothing to hurt me. You make the best of your way. It is for your wife's sake."

There was good sense in all she said, and Lionel started off with a fleet foot. Before Lucy had quite gained the Court she saw him coming back to meet her. He drew her hand within his arm in silence, and kept his own upon it for an instant's grateful pressure.

"Thank you, Lucy, for what you have done. Thank you now and ever. I was too late."

"Is Mrs. Verner gone?"

"She has been gone these ten minutes past, Catherine says. A fly was found immediately."

They turned into the house; into the sitting-room. Lucy threw off the large shawl and the shapeless green bonnet: at any other moment she would have laughed at the figure she must have looked in them. The tea-things still waited on the table.

"Shall I make you some tea?" she asked.

Lionel shook his head. "I must go up and dress. I shall go after Sibylla."

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LXXXV. DECIMA'S ROMANCE

If the fair forms crowding to the fete at Deerham Hall had but known how near that fete was to being shorn of its master's presence, they had gone less hopefully. Scarcely one of the dowagers and chaperones bidden to it, but cast a longing eye to the heir, for their daughters' sakes; scarcely a daughter but experienced a fluttering of the heart, as the fond fancy presented itself that she might be singled out for the chosen partner of Sir Edmund Hautley--for the night, at any rate; and--perhaps--for the long night of the future. But when the clock struck six that evening, Sir Edmund Hautley had not arrived.

Miss Hautley was in a fever--as nearly in one as it is in the nature of a cold, single lady of fifty-eight to go, when some overwhelming disappointment falls abruptly. According to arranged plans, Sir Edmund was to have been at home by middle day, crossing by the night boat from the continent. Middle day came and went; afternoon came and went; evening came--and he had not come. Miss Hautley would have set the telegraph to work, had she known where to set it to.

But good luck was in store for her. A train, arriving between six and seven, brought him; and his carriage--the carriage of his late father, which had been waiting at the station since eleven o'clock in the morning--conveyed him home.

Very considerably astonished was Sir Edmund to find the programme which had been carved out for the night's amusement. He did not like it; it jarred upon his sense of propriety; and he spoke a hint of this to Miss Hautley. It was the death of his father which had called him home; a father with whom he had lived for the last few years of his life upon terms of estrangement--at any rate, upon one point; was it seemly that his inauguration should be one of gaiety? Yes, Miss Hautley decisively answered. Their friends were not meeting to bewail Sir Rufus's death; that took place months ago; but to welcome his, Sir Edmund's, return, and his entrance on his inheritance.

Sir Edmund--a sunny-tempered, yielding man, the very opposite in spirit to his dead father, to his live aunt--conceded the point; doing it with all the better grace, perhaps, that there was now no help for it. In an hour's time the guests would be arriving. Miss Hautley inquired curiously as to the point upon which he and Sir Rufus had been at issue; she had never been able to learn it from Sir Rufus. Neither did it now appear that she was likely to learn it from Sir Edmund. It was a private matter, he said, a smile crossing his lips as he spoke; one entirely between himself and his father, and he could not speak of it. It had driven him abroad she believed, Miss Hautley remarked, vexed that she was still to remain in the dark. Yes, acquiesced Sir Edmund; it had driven him abroad and kept him there.

He was ready, and stood in his place to receive his guests; a tall man, of some five-and-thirty years, with a handsome face and pleasant smile upon it. He greeted his old friends cordially, those with whom he had been intimate, and was laughing and talking with the Countess of Elmsley when the announcement "Lady and Miss Verner" caught his ear.

It caused him to turn abruptly. Breaking off in the midst of a sentence, he quitted the countess and went to meet those who had entered. Lady Verner's greeting was a somewhat elaborate one, and he looked round impatiently for Decima.

She stood in the shade behind her mother. Decima? Was that Decima? What had she done to her cheeks? They wore the crimson hectic which were all too characteristic of Sibylla's. Sir Edmund took her hand.

"I trust you are well?"

"Quite well, thank you," was her murmured answer, drawing away the hand which had barely touched his.

Nothing could be more quiet than the meeting, nothing more simple than the words spoken; nothing, it may be said, more commonplace. But that Decima was suffering from some intense agitation, there could be no doubt; and the next moment her face had turned of that same ghastly hue which had startled her brother Lionel when he was handing her into the carriage. Sir Edmund continued speaking with them a few minutes, and then was called off to receive other guests.

"Have you forgotten how to dance, Edmund?"

The question came from Miss Hautley, disturbing him as he made the centre of a group to whom he was speaking of his Indian life.

"I don't suppose I have," he said, turning to her. "Why?"

"People are thinking so," said Miss Hautley. "The music has been bursting out into fresh attempts this last half-hour, and impatience is getting irrepressible. They cannot begin, Edmund, without you. Your partner is waiting."

"My partner?" reiterated Sir Edmund. "I have asked nobody yet."

"But I have, for you. At least, I have as good as done it. Lady Constance----"

"Oh, my dear aunt, you are very kind," he hastily interrupted, "but when I do dance--which is of rare occurrence--I like to choose my own partner. I must do so now."

"Well, take care, then," was the answer of Miss Hautley, not deeming it necessary to drop her voice in the least. "The room is anxious to see upon whom your choice will be fixed; it may be a type, they are saying, of what another choice of yours may be."

Sir Edmund laughed good-humouredly, making a joke of the allusion. "Then I must walk round deliberately and look out for myself--as it is said some of our royal reigning potentates have done. Thank you for the hint."

But, instead of walking round deliberately, Sir Edmund Hautley proceeded direct to one point of the room, halting before Lady Verner and Decima. He bent to the former, speaking a few words in a joking tone.

"I am bidden to fix upon a partner, Lady Verner. May it be your daughter?"

Lady Verner looked at Decima. "She so seldom dances. I do not think you will persuade her."

"I think I can," he softly said, bending to Decima and holding out his arm. And Decima rose and put hers into it without a word.

"How capricious she is!" remarked Lady Verner to the Countess of Elmsley, who was sitting next her. "If I had pressed her, she would probably have said no--as she has done so many times."

He took his place at the head of the room, Decima by his side in her white silk robes. Decima, with her wondrous beauty, and the hectic on her cheeks again. Many an envious pair of eyes was cast to her. "That dreadful old maid, Decima Verner!" was amongst the compliments launched at her. "She to usurp him! How had my Lady Verner contrived to manoeuvre for it?"

But Sir Edmund did not appear dissatisfied with his partner, if the room was. He paid a vast deal more attention to her than he did to the dance; the latter he put out more than once, his head and eyes being bent, whispering to Decima. Before the dance was over, the hectic on her cheeks had grown deeper.

"Are you afraid of the night air?" he asked, leading her through the conservatory to the door at its other end.

"No. It never hurts me."

He proceeded along the gravel path round to the other side of the house; there he opened the glass doors of a room and entered. It led into another, bright with fire.

"It is my own sitting-room," he observed. "Nobody will intrude upon us here."

Taking up the poker, he stirred the fire into a blaze. Then he put it down and turned to her, as she stood on the hearth-rug.

"Decima!"

It was only a simple name; but Sir Edmund's whole frame was quivering with emotion as he spoke it. He clasped her to him with a strangely fond gesture, and bent his face on hers.

"I left my farewell on your lips when I quitted you, Decima. I must take my welcome from them now."

She burst into tears as she clung to him. "Sir Rufus sent for me when he was dying," she whispered. "Edmund, he said he was sorry to have opposed you; he said he would not if the time could come over again."

"I know it," he answered. "I have his full consent; nay, his blessing. They are but a few words, but they were the last he ever wrote. You shall see them, Decima: he calls you my future wife, Lady Hautley. Oh, my darling! what a long, cruel separation it has been!"

Ay! far more long, more cruel for Decima than for him. She was feeling it bitterly now, as the tears poured down her face. Sir Edmund placed her in a chair. He hung over her scarcely less agitated than she was, soothing her with all the fondness of his true heart, with the sweet words she had once known so well. He turned to the door when she grew calmer.

"I am going to bring Lady Verner. It is time she knew it."

Not through the garden this time, but through the open passages of the house, lined with servants, went Sir Edmund. Lady Verner was in the seat where they left her. He made his way to her, and held his arm out that she might take it.

"Will you allow me to monopolise you for a few minutes?" he said. "I have a tale to tell in which you may feel interested."

"About India?" she asked, as she rose. "I suppose you used to meet some of my old friends there?"

"Not about India," he answered, leading her from the room. "India can wait. About some one nearer and dearer to us than any now in India. Lady Verner, when I asked you just now to permit me to fix upon your daughter as a partner, I could have added for life. Will you give me Decima?"

Had Sir Edmund Hautley asked for herself, Lady Verner could scarcely have been more astonished. He poured into her ear the explanation, the whole tale of their old love, the inveterate opposition to it of Sir Rufus--which had driven him abroad. It had never been made known to Lady Verner.

"It was that caused you to exile yourself!" she reiterated in her amazement.

"It was, Lady Verner. Marry in opposition to my father, I would not--and had I been willing to brave him, Decima never would. So I left my home; I left Decima my father perfectly understanding that our engagement existed still, that it only lay in abeyance until happier times. When he was dying, he repented of his harshness and recalled his interdict: by letter to me, personally to Decima. He died with a blessing for us both on his lips. Jan can tell you so."

"What has Jan to do with it?" exclaimed Lady Verner.

"Sir Rufus made a confidant of Jan, and charged him with the message to me. It was Jan who inclosed to me the few words my father was able to trace."

"I think Jan might have imparted the secret to me," resentfully spoke Lady Verner. "It is just like ungrateful Jan."

"Jan ungrateful?--never!" spoke Sir Edmund warmly. "There's not a truer heart breathing than Jan's. It was not his secret, and I expect he did not consider himself at liberty to tell even you. Decima would have imparted it to you years ago, when I went away, but for one thing."

"What may that have been?" asked Lady Verner.

"Because we feared, she and I, that your pride would be so wounded, and not unjustly, at my father's unreasonable opposition; that you might, in retaliation, forbid the alliance, then and always. You see I am candid, Lady Verner. I can afford to be so, can I not?"

"Decima ought to have told me," was all the reply given by Lady Verner.

"And Decima would have told you, at all hazards, but for my urgent entreaties. The blame is wholly mine, Lady Verner. You must forgive me."

"In what lay the objection of Sir Rufus?" she asked.

"I honestly believe that it arose entirely from that dogged self-will--may I be forgiven for speaking thus irreverently of my dead father!--which was his great characteristic through life. It was I who chose Decima, not he; and therefore my father opposed it. To Decima and to Decima's family he could not have any possible objection--in fact, he had not. But he liked to oppose his will to mine. I--if I know anything of myself--am the very reverse of self-willed, and I had always yielded to him. No question, until this, had ever arisen that was of vital importance to my life and its happiness."

"Sir Rufus may have resented her want of fortune," remarked Lady Verner.

"I think not. He was not a covetous or a selfish man; and our revenues are such that I can make ample settlements on my wife. No, it was the self-will. But it is all over, and I can openly claim her. You will give her to me, Lady Verner?"

"I suppose I must," was the reply of my lady. "But people have been calling her an old maid."

Sir Edmund laughed. "How they will be disappointed! Some of their eyes may be opened to-night. I shall not deem it necessary to make a secret of our engagement now."

"You must permit me to ask one question, Sir Edmund. Have you and Decima corresponded?"

"No. We separated for the time entirely. The engagement existing in our own hearts alone."

"I am glad to hear it. I did not think Decima would have carried on a correspondence unknown to me."

"I am certain that she would not. And for that reason I never asked her to do so. Until I met Decima to-night, Lady Verner, we have had no communication with each other since I left. But I am quite sure that neither of us has doubted the other for a single moment."

"It has been a long while to wait," mused Lady Verner, as they entered the presence of Decima, who started up to receive them.

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