Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/726

718 then, tell me what you mean about Rachel Frost.”

“I won’t,” said Sibylla. “You are killing me,” and she burst into tears.

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

“In what way am I killing you?”

“Why do you leave me so much alone?”

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

“You are leaving me now—you are wanting to go to Verner’s Pnde to-night,” she reiterated with strange inconsistency, considering that she had just insinuated he did not want to go there.

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

Sibylla flung up her hands petulantly.

“I won’t tell you, I say. And you can’t make me. I wish, I wish Fred had not died.”

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t care for it,” he wearily answered.

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

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

“Oh!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Did you mean to leave it? Or have you forgotten it?”

He had forgotten it. He took it from her, retaining her hand for a moment.

“Lucy, you will not misjudge me?” he said, in a strange tone of pain.

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

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

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

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

“You are silent, Decima. Are you sad?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Sir Rufus is dead.”

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

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

traveller often finds in Northern Italy, families of German name and origin, who, though long rooted in the soil, have never entirely abrogated the traces of a distinct race, but continue to preserve, for centuries even, some of those characteristics which indicate a nationality; in this way, the wider foreheads, yellow hair, and,and [sic] blue eyes tell of a people not native to the land, long after their possessors have ceased to retain the language or the habits of the “Vaterland.”

There was such a one at Gariglano. The Eisingardes, settled there for above a century, had risen from the condition of clock-makers—they had brought the craft from the Black Forest—to become the chief persons in the town. After many changes of domicile, each more pretentious than its predecessor, they had at length arrived at the dignity of the Piazza, having purchased the old palace of the Conte Grignolo—the last of a race who had once owned wide lands around the town. The Eisingardes were now, if not exactly, very nearly, “Signori:” not that in dress, mode of living, or in culture they were really above their neighbours, but they were richer. To them men came for loans or mortgages,—to them offered for sale this homestead or that farm; they were, in short, a sort of village Rothschilds, without whose aid no speculation could prosper. The family reached its culminating point in the person of Carlo