"She believed she was coming to her aunt. It was only at the station, here, that she learned Mrs. Verner was dead."

"She did learn it there?"

"Yes. She learned it there."

"And she could come to Verner's Pride _after_ that? knowing that you, and you alone, were its master?"

Lionel toyed with his coffee-cup. He wished his mother would spare her remarks.

"She was so fatigued, so low-spirited, that I believed she was scarcely conscious where she drove," he returned. "I am certain that the idea of there being any impropriety in it never once crossed her mind."

Lady Verner drew her shawl around her with a peculiar movement. If ever action expressed scorn, that one did--scorn of Sibylla, scorn of her conduct, scorn of Lionel's credulity in believing in her. Lionel read it all. Happening to glance across the table, he caught the eyes of Lucy Tempest fixed upon him with an open expression of wonder. Wonder at what? At his believing in Sibylla? It might be. With all Lucy's straightforward plainness, she would have been one of the last to storm Lionel's abode, and take refuge in it. A retort, defending Sibylla, had been upon Lionel's tongue, but that gaze stopped it.

"How long does she purpose honouring Verner's Pride with her presence, and keeping you out of it?" resumed Lady Verner.

"I do not know what her plans for the present may be," he answered, his cheeks burning at the thought of the avowal he had to make--that her future plans would be contingent upon his. Not the least painful of the results which Lionel's haste had brought in its train, was the knowledge of the shock it would prove to his mother, whom he so loved and reverenced. Why had he not thought of it at the time?

Breakfast over, Lionel went out, a very coward. A coward, in so far as that he had shrunk from making yet the confession. He was aware that it ought to be done. The presence of Decima and Lucy Tempest had been his mental excuse for putting off the unwelcome task.

But a better frame of mind came over him ere he had gone many paces from the door; better, at any rate, as regarded the cowardice.

"A Verner never shrank yet from his duty," was his comment, as he bent his steps back again. "Am I turning renegade?"

He went straight up to Lady Verner, and asked her, in a low tone, to grant him a minute's private interview. They had breakfasted in the room which made the ante-room to the drawing-room; it was their usual morning-room. Lady Verner answered her son by stepping into the drawing-room.

He followed her and closed the door. The fire was but just lighted, scarcely giving out any heat. She slightly shivered, and requested him to stir it. He did so mechanically--wholly absorbed by the revelation he had to impart. He remembered how she had once fainted at nearly the same revelation.

"Mother, I have a communication to make to you," he began with desperate energy, "and I don't know how to do it. It will pain you greatly.

Nothing that I can think of, or imagine, would cause you so much pain."

Lady Verner seated herself in her low violet-velvet chair, and looked composedly at Lionel. She did not dread the communication very much. He was secure in Verner's Pride; what could there be that she need fear?

She no more cast a glance to the possibility of his marrying the widow of Frederick Massingbird, than she would have done to his marrying that gentleman's wife. Buried in this semi-security, the shock must be all the greater.

"I am about to marry," said Lionel, plunging into the news headlong.

"And I fear that you will not approve my choice. Nay, I know you will not."

A foreshadowing of the truth came across her then. She grew deadly pale, and put up her hands, as if to ward off the blow. "Oh, Lionel! don't say it! don't say it!" she implored. "I never can receive her."

"Yes, you will, mother," he whispered, his own face pale too, his tone one of painful entreaty. "You will receive her for my sake."

"Is it--_she_?"

The aversion with which the name was avoided was unmistakable. Lionel only nodded a grave affirmative.

"Have you engaged yourself to her?"

"I have. Last night."

"Were you mad?" she asked in a whisper.

"Stay, mother. When you were speaking against Sibylla at breakfast, I refrained from interference, for you did not then know that defence of her was my duty. Will you forgive me for reminding you that I cannot permit it to be continued, even by you?"

"But do you forget that it is not a respectable alliance for you?"

resumed Lady Verner. "No, not a respectable--"

"I cannot listen to this; I pray you cease!" he broke forth, a blaze of anger lighting his face. "Have you forgotten of whom you are speaking, mother? Not respectable!"

"I say that it is not a respectable alliance for you--Lionel Verner,"

she persisted. "An obscure surgeon's daughter, he of not too good repute, who has been out to the end of the world, and found her way back alone, a widow, is _not_ a desirable alliance for a Verner. It would not be desirable for Jan; it is terrible for you?"

"We shall not agree upon this," said Lionel, preparing to take his departure. "I have acquainted you, mother, and I have no more to say, except to urge--if I may do so--that you will learn to speak of Sibylla with courtesy, remembering that she will shortly be my wife."

Lady Verner caught his hand as he was retreating.

"Lionel, my son, tell me how you came to do it," she wailed. "You cannot _love_ her! the wife, the widow of another man! It must have been the work of a moment of folly. Perhaps she drew you into it!"

The suggestion, "the work of a moment of folly," was so very close a representation of what it had been, of what Lionel was beginning to see it to have been now, that the rest of the speech was lost to him in the echo of that one sentence. Somehow, he did not care to refute it.

"She will be my wife, respected and honoured," was all he answered, as he quitted the room.

Lady Verner followed him. He went straight out, and she saw him walk hastily across the courtyard, putting on his hat as he traversed it. She wrung her hands, and broke into a storm of wailing despair, ignoring the presence of Decima and Lucy Tempest.

"I had far rather that she had stabbed him!"

The words excited their amazement. They turned to Lady Verner, and were struck with the marks of agitation on her countenance.

"Mamma, what are you speaking of?" asked Decima.

Lady Verner pointed to Lionel, who was then passing through the front gates. "I speak _of him_," she answered: "my darling; my pride; my much-loved son. That woman has worked his ruin."

Decima verily thought her mother must be wandering in her intellect.

Lucy could only gaze at Lady Verner in consternation.

"What woman?" repeated Decima.

"_She_. She who has been Lionel's bane. She who came and thrust herself into his home last night in her unseemly conduct. What passed between them Heaven knows; but she has contrived to cajole him out of a promise to marry her."

Decima's pale cheek turned to a burning red. She was afraid to ask questions.

"Oh, mamma! it cannot be!" was all she uttered.

"It _is_, Decima. I told Lionel that he could not love _her_, who had been the wife of another man; and he did not refute it. I told him she must have drawn him into it; and that he left unanswered. He replied that she would be his wife, and must be honoured as such. Drawn in to marry her! one who is so utterly unworthy of him! whom he does not even love! Oh, Lionel, my son, my son!"

In their own grievous sorrow they noticed not the face of Lucy Tempest, or what they might have read there.