asked him to stay dinner. He is in the drawing-room now. There is no
other stranger."

"Has Captain Cannonby not been here at all?" reiterated Lionel. "He left
London this morning to come."

Tynn shook his head to express a negative. "He has not arrived, sir."

Lionel went in again, his feelings undergoing a sort of revulsion, for
there now peeped out a glimmer of hope. So long as the nearly certain
conviction on Lionel's mind was not confirmed by positive testimony--as
he expected Captain Cannonby's would be--he could not entirely lose
sight of all hope. That he most fervently prayed the blow might not
fall, might even now be averted, you will readily believe. Sibylla had
not been to him the wife he had fondly hoped for; she provoked him every
hour in the day; she appeared to do what she could, wilfully to estrange
his affection. He was conscious of all this; he was all too conscious
that his inmost love was another's, not hers. But he lost sight of
himself in anxiety for her; it was for her sake he prayed and hoped.
Whether she was his wife by law or not; whether she was loved or hated,
Lionel's course of duty lay plain before him now--to shield her, so far
as he might be allowed, in all care and tenderness. He would have shed
his last drop of blood to promote her comfort; he would have sacrificed
every feeling of his heart for her sake.

The wine in his hand, he turned into the room again. A change had taken
place in her aspect. She had left the chair, and was standing against
the wall opposite the door, her tears dried, her eyes unnaturally
bright, her cheeks burning.

"Lionel," she uttered, a catching of the breath betraying her emotion,
"if _he_ is alive, whose is Verner's Pride?"

"His," replied Lionel, in a low tone.

She shrieked out, very much after the manner of a petulant child. "I
won't leave it!--I won't leave Verner's Pride! You could not be so cruel
as to wish me. Who says he is alive? Lionel, I ask you who it is that
says he is alive?"

"Hush, my dear! This excitement will do you a world of harm, and it
cannot mend the matter, however it may be. I want to know who told you
of this, Sibylla. I supposed it to be Cannonby; but Tynn says Cannonby
has not been here."

The question appeared to divert her thoughts into another channel.
"Cannonby! What should bring him here? Did you expect him to come?"

"Drink your wine, and then I will tell you," he said, holding the glass
towards her.

She push