felt ashamed for him.
Dinner over, Lionel went up to his wife, who was keeping her room,
partly from temper, partly from illness.

"Sibylla, I'll not stop here another day," he said. "I see that John
Massingbird wants us to go. Now, what shall I do? Take lodgings?"

Sibylla looked up from the sofa, her eyes red with crying, her cheeks
inflamed.

"Anybody but you, Lionel, would never allow him to turn you out. Why
don't you dispute the right with him? Turn _him_ out, and defy him!"

He did not tell Sibylla that she was talking like a child. He only said
that John Massingbird's claim to Verner's Pride was indisputable--that
it had been his all along; that, in point of fact, he himself had been
the usurper.

"Then you mean," she said, "to give him up quiet possession?"

"I have no other resource, Sibylla. To attempt any sort of resistance
would be foolish as well as wrong."

"_I_ shan't give it up. I shall stay here in spite of him. You may do as
you like, but he is not going to get me out of my own home."

"Sibylla, will you try and be rational for once? If ever a time called
for it, it is the present. I ask you whether I shall seek after
lodgings."

"And I wonder that you are not ashamed to ask me," retorted Sibylla,
bursting into tears. "Lodgings, after Verner's Pride! No. I'd rather die
than go into lodgings. I dare say I shall die soon, with all this
affliction."

"I do not see what else there is for us but lodgings," resumed Lionel,
after a pause. "You will not hear of Jan's proposition."

"Go back to my old home!" she shrieked. "Like--as poor Fred used to
say--bad money returned. No! that I never will. You are wrapt up in Jan;
if he proposed to give me poison, you'd say yes. I wish Fred had not
died!"

"Will you be so good as tell me what _you_ think ought to be done?"
inquired Lionel.

"How can I think? Where's the good of asking me? I think the least you
can do in this wretchedness, is to take as much worry off me as you can,
Lionel."

"It is what I wish to do," he gently said. "But I can see only one plan
for us, Sibylla--lodgings. Here we cannot stay; it is out of the
question. To take a house is equally so. We have no furniture--no money,
in short, to set up a house, or to keep it on. Jan's plan, until I can
turn myself round and see what's to be done, would be the best. You
would be going to your own sisters, who would take care of you, should I
find it necessary to be away."

"Away! Where