heart was beating as he gazed on her, he alone knew. She was once again
the Sibylla of past days. He forgot that she was the widow of another;
that she had left him for that other of her own free will. All his past
resentment faded in that moment: nothing was present to him but his
love; and Sibylla with her fascinating beauty.

"You are thinner than when you left home," he remarked.

"I grew thin with vexation; with grief. He ought not to have taken me."

The concluding sentence was spoken in a strangely resentful tone. It
surprised Lionel. "Who ought not to have taken you?--taken you where?"
he asked, really not understanding her.

"He. Frederick Massingbird. He might have known what a place that
Melbourne was. It was not fit for a lady. We had lodgings in a wooden
house, near a spot that had used to be called Canvas Town. The place was
crowded with people."

"But surely there are decent hotels at Melbourne?"

"All I know is he did not take me to one. He inquired at one or two, but
they were full; and then somebody recommended him to get a lodging. It
was not right. He might have gone to it himself, but he had me with him.
He lost his desk, you know."

"I heard that he did," replied Lionel.

"And I suppose that frightened him. Everything was in the desk--money
and letters of credit. He had a few bank-notes, only, left in his
pocket-book. It never was recovered. I owe my passage-money home, and I
believe Captain Cannonby supplied him with some funds--which of course
ought to be repaid. He took to drinking brandy," she continued.

"I am much surprised to hear it."

"Some fever came on. I don't know whether he caught it, or whether it
came to him naturally. It was a sort of intermittent fever. At times he
was very low with it, and then it was that he would drink the brandy.
Only fancy what my position was!" she added, her face and voice alike
full of pain. "He, not always himself; and I, out there in that wretched
place, alone. I went down on my knees to him one day, and begged him to
send me back to England."

"Sibylla!"

He was unconscious that he called her by the familiar name. He was
wishing he could have shielded her from all this. Painful as the
retrospect might be to her, the recital was far more painful to him.

"After that, we met Captain Cannonby. I did not much like him, but he
was kind to us. He got us to change to an hotel--made them find room for
us--and then introduced me to the Eyres. Aft