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."



CHAPTER 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."



CHAPTER 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.



CHAPTER 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.



CHAPTER 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."



CHAPTER 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.



CHAPTER LXXXVI.

WAS IT A SPECTRE?

When they returned to the rooms, Sir Edmund with Decima, Lady Verner by her daughter's side, the first object that met their view was Jan. Jan at a ball! Lady Verner lifted her eyebrows; she had never believed that Jan would really show himself where he must be so entirely out of place. But there Jan was; in decent dress, too—black clothes, and a white neckcloth and gloves. It's true the bow of his neckcloth was tied upside down, and the gloves had their thumbs nearly out. Jan's great hands laid hold of both Sir Edmund's.

"I'm uncommon glad you are back!" cried he—which was his polite phrase for expressing satisfaction.

"So am I, Jan," heartily answered Sir Edmund. "I have never had a real friend, Jan, since I left you."

"We can be friends still," said plain Jan.

"Ay," said Sir Edmund meaningly, "and brothers." But the last word was spoken in Jan's ear alone, for they were in a crowd now.

"To see you here very much surprises me, Jan," remarked Lady Verner, asperity in her tone. "I hope you will contrive to behave properly."

Lady Mary Elmsley, then standing with them, laughed. "What are you afraid he should do, Lady Verner?"

"He was not made for society," said Lady Verner, with asperity.

"Nor society for me," returned Jan good-humouredly. "I'd rather be watching a case of fever."

"Oh, Jan!" cried Lady Mary, laughing still.

"So I would," repeated Jan. "At somebody's bedside, in my easy coat, I feel at home. And I feel that I am doing good; that's more. This is nothing but waste of time."

"You hear?" appealed Lady Verner to them, as if Jan's avowal were a passing proof of her assertion—that he and society were antagonistic to each other, "I wonder you took the thought to attire yourself passably," she added, her face retaining its strong vexation. "Had anybody asked me, I should have given it as my opinion, that you had not things fit to appear in."

"I had got these," returned Jan, looking down at his clothes. "Won't they do? It's my funeral suit."

The unconscious, matter-of-fact style of Jan's avowal was beyond everything. Lady Verner was struck dumb, Sir Edmund smiled, and Mary Elmsley laughed outright.

"Oh, Jan!" said she, "you'll be a child all your days. What do you mean by your 'funeral suit'?"

"Anybody might know that," was Jan's answer to Lady Mary. "It's the suit I keep for funerals. A doctor is always being asked to attend them; and if he does not go he offends the people."

"You might have kept the information to yourself," rebuked Lady Verner.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" asked Jan. "Aren't they good enough to come in?"

He turned his head round, to get a glance at the said suit behind. Sir Edmund laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder. Young as Jan had been before Edmund Hautley went out, they had lived close friends.

"The clothes are all right, Jan. And if you had come without a coat at all, you would have been equally welcome to me."

"I should not have gone to this sort of thing anywhere else, you know; it is not in my line, as my mother says. I came to see you."

"And I would rather see you, Jan, than anybody else in the room—with one exception," was the reply of Sir Edmund. "I am sorry not to see Lionel."

"He couldn't come," answered Jan. "His wife turned crusty, and said she'd come if he did—something of that—and so he stayed at home. She is very ill, and she wants to ignore it, and go out all the same. It is not fit she should."

"Pray do you mean to dance, Jan?" inquired Lady Verner, the question being put ironically.

"I?" returned Jan. "Who'd dance with me?"

"I'll dance with you, Jan," said Lady Mary.

Jan shook his head. "I might get my feet entangled in the petticoats."

"Not you, Jan," said Sir Edmund, laughing. "I should risk that, if a lady asked me."

"She'd not care to dance with me," returned Jan, looking at Mary Elmsley. "She only says it out of good-nature."

"No, Jan, I don't think I do," frankly avowed Lady Mary. "I should like to dance with you."

"I'd stand up with you, if I stood up with anybody," replied Jan. "But where's the good of it? I don't know the figures, and should only put you out, as well as everybody else."

So, what with his ignorance of the figures, and his dreaded awkwardness amidst the trains, Jan was allowed to rest in peace. Mary Elmsley told him that if he would come over sometimes to their house in an evening, she and her young sisters would practise the figures with him, so that he might learn them. It was Jan's turn to laugh now. The notion of his practising dancing, or having evenings to waste on it, amused him considerably.