ngs, but I did
not mean to make you angry."

He rose, steadying himself by the table, and laid his hand upon her
head, with the same fond motion that a father might have used.

"Lucy, I am not angry--only vexed at being watched so closely," he
concluded, his lips parting with a faint smile.

In her earnest, truthful, serious face of concern, as it was turned up
to him, he read how futile it would be to persist in his denial.

"I did not watch you for the purpose of watching. I saw how it was,
without being able to help myself."

Lionel bent his head.

"Let the secret remain between us, Lucy. Never suffer a hint of it to
escape your lips."

Nothing answered him save the glad expression that beamed out from her
countenance, telling him how implicitly he might trust to her.

CHAPTER XXIV.

DANGEROUS COMPANIONSHIP.

Lionel Verner grew better. His naturally good constitution triumphed
over the disease, and his sick soreness of mind lost somewhat of its
sharpness. So long as he brooded in silence over his pain and his
wrongs, there was little chance of the sting becoming much lighter; it
was like the vulture preying upon its own vitals; but that season of
silence was past. When once a deep grief can be _spoken of_, its great
agony is gone. I think there is an old saying, or a proverb--"Griefs
lose themselves in telling," and a greater truism was never uttered. The
ice once broken, touching his feelings with regard to Sibylla, Lionel
found comfort in making it his theme of conversation, of complaint,
although his hearer and confidant was only Lucy Tempest. A strange
comfort, but yet a natural one, as those who have suffered as Lionel did
may be able to testify. At the time of the blow, when Sibylla deserted
him with coolness so great, Lionel could have died rather than give
utterance to a syllable betraying his own pain; but several months had
elapsed since, and the turning-point was come. He did not,
unfortunately, love Sibylla one shade less; love such as his cannot be
overcome so lightly; but the keenness of the disappointment, the blow to
his self-esteem--to his vanity, it may be said--was growing less
intense. In a case like this, of faithlessness, let it happen to man or
to woman, the wounding of the self-esteem is not the least evil that
must be borne. Lucy Tempest was, in Lionel's estimation, little more
than a child, yet it was singular how he grew to love to talk with her.
Not for love of _her_--