ously. "I am going to make Deborah tell me all she
knows, and where she heard it."

"But----"

"I won't be dictated to, Lionel," she querulously stopped him with. "I
will go. What is it to you?"

He turned without a remonstrance, and attended her to the carriage,
placing her in it as considerately as though she had met him with a
wife's loving words. When she was seated, he leaned towards her. "Would
you like me to accompany you, Sibylla?"

"I don't care about it."

He closed the door in silence, his lips compressed. There were times
when her fitful moods vexed him above common. This was one. When they
knew not but the passing hour might be the last of their union, the last
they should ever spend together, it was scarcely seemly to mar its
harmony with ill temper. At least, so felt Lionel. Sibylla spoke as he
was turning away.

"Of course, I thought you would go with me. I did not expect you would
grumble at me for going."

"Get my hat, Bennet," he said. And he stepped in and took his seat
beside her.

Courteously, and smiling as though not a shade of care were within ages
of him, Lionel bowed to his guests as the carriage passed the
breakfast-room windows. He saw that curious faces were directed to him;
he felt that wondering comments, as to their early and sudden drive,
were being spoken; he knew that the scene of the past evening was
affording food for speculation. He could not help it; but these minor
annoyances were as nothing, compared to the great trouble that absorbed
him. The windows passed, he turned to his wife.

"I have neither grumbled at you for going, Sibylla, nor do I see cause
for grumbling. Why should you charge me with it?"

"There! you are going to find fault with me again! Why are you so
cross?"

Cross! He cross! Lionel suppressed at once the retort that was rising to
his lips; as he had done hundreds of times before.

"Heaven knows, nothing was further from my thoughts than to be 'cross,'"
he answered, his tone full of pain. "Were I to be cross to you, Sibylla,
in--in--what may be our last hour together, I should reflect upon myself
for my whole life afterwards."

"It is not our last hour together!" she vehemently answered. "Who says
it is?"

"I trust it is not. But I cannot conceal from myself the fact that it
maybe so. Remember," he added, turning to her with a sudden impulse, and
clasping both her hands within his in a firm, impressive
grasp--"remember that my whole life, sin