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. 3, 1863.] enough of it. You shan’t 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? And you care for him in return! 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. “It is time I spoke when you and Lucy Tempest carry on a secret understanding. 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: 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 added, 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 entrusted 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 learnt 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