do not fancy that--but for the opportunity it
gave him of talking of Sibylla. You may deem this an anomaly; I know
that it was natural; and, like oil poured upon a wound, so did it bring
balm to Lionel's troubled spirit.

He never spoke of her save at the dusk hour. During the broad, garish
light of day, his lips were sealed. In the soft twilight of the evening,
if it happened that Lucy was alone with him, then he would pour out his
heart--would tell of his past tribulation. As past he spoke of it; had
he not regarded it as past, he never would have spoken. Lucy listened,
mostly in silence, returning him her earnest sympathy. Had Lucy Tempest
been a little older in ideas, or had she been by nature and rearing less
entirely single-minded, she might not have sat unrestrainedly with him,
going into the room at any moment, and stopping there, as she would had
he been her brother. Lucy was getting to covet the companionship of
Lionel very much--too much, taking all things into consideration. It
never occurred to her that, for that very reason, she might do well to
keep away. She was not sufficiently experienced to define her own
sensations; and she did not surmise that there was anything inexpedient
or not perfectly orthodox in her being so much with Lionel. She liked to
be with him, and she freely indulged the liking upon any occasion that
offered.

"Oh, Lucy, I loved her! I did love her!" he would say, having repeated
the same words perhaps fifty times before in other interviews; and he
would lean back in his easy-chair, and cover his eyes with his hand, as
if willing to shut out all sight save that of the past. "Heaven knows
what she was to me! Heaven only knows what her faithlessness has cost!"

"Did you dream of her last night, Lionel?" answered Lucy, from her low
seat where she generally sat, near to Lionel, but with her face mostly
turned from him.

And it may as well be mentioned that Miss Lucy never thought of such a
thing as _discouraging_ Lionel's love and remembrance of Sibylla. Her
whole business in the matter seemed to be to listen to him, and help him
to remember her.

"Ay," said Lionel, in answer to the question. "Do you suppose I should
dream of anything else?"

Whatever Lucy may or may not have supposed, it was a positive fact,
known well to Lionel--known to him, and remembered by him to this
hour--that he constantly dreamed of Sibylla. Night after night, since
the unhappy time when he learned that s