know what to do. Every moment there seemed to grow less
chance that she would leave the house. A bright thought darted into his
mind. It was, that he would get his mother or Decima to come and stay
with him for a time.

"What would you like to take?" he inquired. "Mrs. Tynn will get you
anything you wish. I----"

"Nothing yet," she interrupted. "I could not eat; I am too unhappy. I
will take some tea presently, but not until I am warmer. I am very
cold."

She cowered over the fire again, shivering much. Lionel, saying he had a
note to write, sat down to a distant table. He penned a few hasty lines
to his mother, telling her that Mrs. Massingbird had arrived, under the
impression that she was coming to Mrs. Verner, and that he could not
well turn her out again that night, fatigued and poorly as she appeared
to him to be. He begged his mother to come to him for a day or two, in
the emergency, or to send Decima.

An undercurrent of conviction ran in Lionel's mind during the time of
writing it that his mother would not come; he doubted even whether she
would allow Decima to come. He drove the thought away from him; but the
impression remained. Carrying the note out of the room when written, he
despatched it to Deerham Court by a mounted groom. As he was returning
to the dining-room he encountered Mrs. Tynn.

"I hear Mrs. Massingbird has arrived, sir," cried she.

"Yes," replied Lionel. "She will like some tea presently. She appears
very much fatigued."

"Is the luggage to be taken upstairs, sir?" she continued, pointing to
the pile in the hall. "Is she going to stay here?"

Lionel really did not know what answer to make.

"She came expecting to stay," he said, after a pause. "She did not know
but your mistress was still here. Should she remain, I dare say Lady
Verner, or my sister, will join her. You have beds ready?"

"Plenty of them, sir, at five minutes' notice."

When Lionel entered the room, Sibylla was in the same attitude,
shivering over the fire. Unnaturally cold she appeared to be, and yet
her cheeks were brilliantly bright, as if with a touch of fever.

"I fear you have caught cold on the journey to-day," he said.

"I don't think so," she answered. "I am cold from nervousness. I went
cold at the station when they told me that my aunt was dead, and I have
been shivering ever since. Never mind me; it will go off presently."

Lionel drew a chair to the other side of the fire, compassionately
regardi