t End would but set
up a stock of them for sale, what a lot of customers he'd have!--Sibylla
was content to cherish the mental view she had conjured up, and to
improve upon it. All the afternoon she kept improving upon it, until she
worked herself up to that agreeable pitch of distorted excitement when
the mind does not know what is real, and what fancy. It was a regular
April day; one of sunshine and storm; now the sun shining out bright and
clear; now, the rain pattering against the panes; and Sibylla wandered
from room to room, upstairs and down, as stormy as the weather.

_Had_ her dreams been types of fact? Upon glancing from the window,
during a sharper shower than any they had yet had, she saw her husband
coming in at the large gates, Lucy Tempest on his arm, over whom he was
holding an umbrella. They were walking slowly; conversing, as it seemed,
confidentially. It was quite enough for Mrs. Verner.

But it was a very innocent, accidental meeting, and the confidential
conversation was only about the state of poor old Matthew Frost. Lionel
had taken Clay Lane on his road home for the purpose of inquiring after
old Matthew. There, standing in the kitchen, he found Lucy. Decima was
with the old man, and it was uncertain how long she would stay with him;
and Lucy, who had no umbrella, was waiting for the shower to be over to
get back to Deerham Court. Lionel offered her the shelter of his. As
they advanced through the courtyard, Lucy saw Sibylla at the small
drawing-room window--the ante-room, as it was called--and nodded a
smiling greeting to her. She did not return it, and Lionel saw that his
wife looked black as night.

They came in, Lucy untying her bonnet-strings, and addressing Sibylla in
a pleasant tone--

"What a sharp storm!" she said. "And I think it means to last, for there
seems no sign of its clearing up. I don't know how I should have come,
but for Mr. Verner's umbrella."

No reply from Mrs. Verner.

"Decima is with old Matthew Frost," continued Lucy, passing into the
drawing-room; "she desired that we would not wait dinner for her."

Then began Sibylla. She turned upon Lionel in a state of perfect fury,
her temper, like a torrent, bearing down all before it--all decency, all
consideration.

"Where have you been? You and she?"

"Do you allude to Lucy?" he asked, pausing before he replied, and
looking at her with surprise. "We have been nowhere. I saw her at old
Frost's as I came by, and broug