"Dan Duff is dying, or dead," returned Sibylla. "Benoite was in Deerham last night, and brought him home to carry her parcels. In going back again, he saw, as he says, Rachel Frost's ghost, and it terrified him out of his senses. Old Roy saw it too, and the news has travelled up here."

Sibylla laughed as she spoke. Lionel looked vexed.

"They are very stupid," he said. "A pity but they kept such stories to themselves. If they were only as quiet as poor Rachel's ghost is, it might be better for some of them."

"Of course _you_ would wish it kept quiet," said Sibylla, in a tone full of significance. "I like to hear of these frights--it is good fun."

He did not fathom in the remotest degree the meaning of her tone. But he had not gone thither to dispute about ghosts.

"Sibylla," he gravely said, putting the open account into her hand, "I have received this bill this morning."

Sibylla ran her eyes over it with indifference; first at the bill's head, to see whence it came, next at its sum total.

"What an old cheat! Eleven hundred pounds! I am sure I have not had the half."

Lionel pointed to the part "bill delivered." "Was that not paid in the spring?"

"How can I recollect?" returned Sibylla, speaking as carelessly as before.

"I think you may recollect if you try. I gave you a cheque for the amount."

"Oh, yes, I do recollect now. It has not been paid."

"But, my dear, I say I gave the cheque for it."

"I cashed the cheque myself. I wanted some money just then. You can't think how fast money goes in London, Lionel."

The avowal proved only what he suspected. Nevertheless it hurt him greatly--grieved him to his heart's core. Not so much the spending of the money, as the keeping the fact from him. What a lack of good feeling, of confidence, it proved.

He bent towards her, speaking gently, kindly. Whatever might be her faults to him, her provocations, he could never behave otherwise to her than as a thorough gentleman, a kind husband.

"It was not right to use that cheque, Sibylla. It was made out in Madame Lebeau's name, and should have been paid to her. But why did you not tell me?"

Sibylla shrugged her shoulders in place of answer. She had picked up many such little national habits of Mademoiselle Benoite's. Very conspicuous just then was the upright line on Lionel's brow.

"The amount altogether is, you perceive, eleven hundred pounds," he continued.

"Yes," said Sibylla. "She's a cheat, that Madame Lebeau. I shall make Benoite write her a French letter, and tell her so."

"It must be paid. But it is a great deal of money. I cannot continue to pay these large sums, Sibylla. I have not the money to do it with."

"Not the money! When you know you are paying heaps for Lady Verner!

Before you tell me not to spend, you should cease supplying her."

Lionel's very brow flushed. "My mother has a claim upon me only in a degree less than you have," he gravely said. "Part of the revenues of Verner's Pride ought to have been hers years ago; and they were not."

"If my husband had lived--if he had left me a little child--Verner's Pride would have been his and mine, and never yours at all."

"Hush, Sibylla! You don't know how these allusions hurt me," he interrupted, in a tone of intense pain.

"They are true," said Sibylla.

"But not--forgive me, my dear, for saying it--not the less unseemly."

"Why do you grumble at me, then?"

"I do not grumble," he answered in a kind tone. "Your interests are mine, Sibylla, and mine are yours. I only tell you the fact--and a fact it is--that our income will not stand these heavy calls upon it. Were I to show you how much you have spent in dress since we were married--what with Paris, London, and Heartburg--the sum total would frighten you."

"You should not keep the sum total," resentfully spoke Sibylla. "Why do you add it up?"

"I must keep my accounts correctly. My uncle taught me that."

"I am sure he did not teach you to grumble at me," she rejoined. "I look upon Verner's Pride as mine, more than yours; if it had not been for the death of my husband, you would never have had it."

Inexpressibly vexed--vexed beyond the power to answer, for he would not trust himself to answer--Lionel prepared to quit the room. He began to wish he had not had Verner's Pride, if this was to be its domestic peace. Sibylla petulantly threw the French book from her lap upon the table, and it fell down with its page open.

Lionel's eyes caught its title, and a flush, not less deep than the preceding flush, darkened his brow. He laid his open palm upon the page with an involuntary movement, as if he would guard it from the eyes of his wife. That she should be reading that notorious work!

"Where did you get this?" he cried. "It is not a fit book for you."

"There's nothing-the matter with the book as far as I have gone."

"Indeed you must not read it! Pray don't, Sibylla! You will be sorry for it afterwards."

"How do you know it is not a fit book?"

"Because I have read it."

"There! _You_ have read it! And you would like to deny the pleasure to me! Don't say you are never selfish."

"Sibylla! What is fit for me to read may be most unfit for you. I read the book when I was a young man; I would not read it now. Is it Benoite's?" he inquired, seeing the name in the first page.

"Yes, it is."

Lionel closed the book. "Promise me, Sibylla, that you will not attempt to read more of it. Give it her back at once, and tell her to send it out of the house, or to keep it under lock and key while it remains within it."

Sibylla hesitated.

"Is it so very hard a promise?" he tenderly asked. "I would do a great deal more for you."

"Yes, Lionel, I will promise," she replied, a better feeling coming over her. "I will give it her back now. Benoite!"

She called loudly. Benoite heard, and came in.

"Mr. Verner says this is not a nice book. You may take it away."

Mademoiselle Benoite advanced with a red face, and took the book.

"Have you any more such books?" inquired Lionel, looking at her.