ked.

"To Melbourne, with Fred," said Miss Deborah. "Fred's going out to see
about the money and gold that John left, and to realise it. They are not
to stay: it will only be the voyage out and home. But if she should be
taken ill out there, and die! Her sisters died, Mr. Lionel. Fred is her
cousin, too. Better have married one not of kin."

They talked on. Lionel heard them not. After the revelation, that she
was about to marry, all else seemed a chaos. But he was one who could
control his feelings.

"I must be going," said he quietly, moving from his standing-place with
calmness. "Good-day to you."

He shook hands with them both, amidst a great accession of sobs, and
quitted the room. Running down the stairs at that moment, singing gaily
a scrap of a merry song, came Sibylla, unconscious of his vicinity;
indeed, of his presence in the house. She started when she saw him, and
stopped in hesitation.

Lionel threw open the door of the empty dining-room, caught her arm and
drew her into it--his bearing haughty, his gestures imperative. There
they stood before each other, neither speaking for some moments.
Lionel's very lips were livid; and _her_ rich wax-work colour went and
came, and her clear blue eyes fell under the stern gaze of his.

"Is this true, which I have been obliged to hear?" was his first
question.

She knew that she had acted ill. She knew that Lionel Verner deserved to
have a better part played by him. She had always looked up to him--all
the Wests had--as one superior in birth, rank, and station to herself.
Altogether, the moment brought to her a great amount of shame and
confusion.

"Answer me one question; I demand it of you," exclaimed Lionel. "Have
you ever mistaken my sentiments towards you in the least degree?"

"Have--I--I don't know," she faltered.

"No equivocation," burst Lionel. "Have you not _known_ that I loved you?
that I was only waiting my uncle's death to make you my wife?--Heaven
forgive me that I should thus speak as though I had built upon it!"

Sibylla let fall some tears.

"Which have you loved?--all this while! Me?--or him?"

"Oh! don't speak to me like that," sobbed Sibylla. "He asked me to marry
him, and--and--papa said yes."

"I ask you," said Lionel in a low voice, "which is it that you love?"

She did not answer. She stood before him the prettiest picture of
distress imaginable; her hands clasped, her large blue eyes filled with
tears, her shower of golden ha