ied, the upright line in his
brow showing out just then all too deep and plain. "I engaged myself to
my first wife in an unguarded moment; as soon as the word was spoken I
became aware that she was less dear to me than Lucy. I might have
retracted; but the retractation would have left a stain on my honour
that could never be effaced. I am, not the first man who has paid by
years of penitence for a word spoken in the heat of passion."

True enough! Sir Henry simply nodded his head in answer.

"Yes, I loved Lucy; I married another, loving her; I never ceased loving
her all throughout my married life. And I had to force down my feelings;
to suppress and hide them in the best manner that I could."

"And Lucy?" involuntarily uttered Sir Henry.

"Lucy--may I dare to say it to you?--loved me," he answered, his breath
coming fast. "I believe, from my very heart, that she loved me in that
early time, deeply perhaps as I loved her. I have never exchanged a word
with her upon the point; but I cannot conceal from myself that it was
the unhappy fact."

"Did you know it at the time?"

"No!" he answered, raising his hand to his brow, on which the drops were
gathering, "I did not suspect it until it was too late; until I was
married. She was so child-like."

Sir Henry Tempest sat in silence, probably revolving the information.

"If you had known it--what then?"

"Do not ask me," replied Lionel, his bewailing tone strangely full of
pain. "I cannot tell what I should have done. It would have been
Lucy--love--_versus_ honour. And a Verner never sacrificed honour yet.
And yet--it seems to me that I sacrificed honour in the course I took.
Let the question drop, Sir Henry. It is a time I cannot bear to recur
to."

Neither spoke for some minutes. Lionel's face was shaded by his hand.
Presently he looked up.

"Do not part us, Sir Henry!" he implored, his voice quite hoarse with
its emotion, its earnestness. "We could neither of us bear it. I have
waited for her long."

"I will deal candidly with you," said Sir Henry. "In the old days it was
a favourite project of mine and your father's that our families should
become connected by the union of our children--you and Lucy. We only
spoke of it to each other; saying nothing to our wives: they might have
set to work, women fashion, and urged it on by plotting and planning:
_we_ were content to let events take their course, and to welcome the
fruition, should it come. Nearly the last w