in position as Lord Garle; but they were very well. And her
motive I never have been able to get at. It has vexed me much. I have
pointed out to her that when ever you returned home, you might think I
had been neglectful of her interests."

"No, no," replied Sir Henry, "I could not fancy coming home to find Lucy
married. I should not have liked it. She would have seemed to be gone
from me."

"But she must marry some time, and the years are going on," returned
Lady Verner.

"Yes, I suppose she must."

"At least, I should say she would, were it anybody but Lucy," rejoined
Lady Verner, qualifying her words. "After the refusal of Lord Garle,
one does not know what to think. You will see him and judge for
yourself."

"What was the motive of the refusal, Lucy?" inquired Sir Henry.

He spoke with a smile, in a gay, careless tone; but Lucy appeared to
take the question in a serious light. Her eyelids drooped, her whole
face became scarlet, her demeanour almost agitated.

"I did not care to marry, papa," she answered in a low tone. "I did not
care for Lord Garle."

"One grievous fear has been upon me ever since, haunting my rest at
night, disturbing my peace by day," resumed Lady Verner. "I must speak
of it to you, Sir Henry. Absurd as the notion really is, and as at times
it appears to me that it must be, still it does intrude, and I should
scarcely be acting an honourable part by you to conceal it, sad as the
calamity would be."

Lucy looked up in surprise. Sir Henry in a sort of puzzled wonder.

"When she refused Lord Garle, whom she acknowledged she _liked_, and
forbade him to entertain any future hope whatever, I naturally began to
look about me for the cause. I could only come to one conclusion, I am
sorry to say--that she cared too much for another."

Lucy sat in an agony; the scarlet of her face changing to whiteness.

"I arrived at the conclusion, I say," continued Lady Verner, "and I
began to consider whom the object could be. I called over in my mind all
the gentlemen she was in the habit of seeing; and unfortunately there
was only one--only one upon whom my suspicions could fix. I recalled
phrases of affection openly lavished upon him by Lucy; I remembered that
there was no society she seemed to enjoy and be so much at ease with as
his. I have done what I could since to keep him at arm's length; and I
shall never forgive myself for having been so blind. But, you see, I no
more thought she, or any other