y her face changed.
"You must be jesting with me, Angus. I don't know much about money, but
I know we are not rich enough to keep up a Hall."

"We _were_ not, but we are now, I am happy to say," answered Captain
Rothesay, with some triumph.

"Rich! very rich! and you never told me?" Sybilla's hands fell on
her knee, and it was doubtful which expression was dominant in her
countenance--womanly pain, or womanly indignation.

Angus looked annoyed. "My dear Sybilla, listen to me quietly--yes,
quietly," he added, seeing how her colour came and went, and her lips
seemed ready to burst out into petulant reproach. "When I left England,
I was taunted with having run away with an heiress. That I did not do,
since you were far poorer than the world thought--and I loved little
Sybilla Hyde for herself and not for her fortune. But the taunt stung
me, and, when I left you, I resolved never to return until I could
return a rich man on my own account. I am such now. Are you not glad,
Sybilla?"

"Glad--glad to have been kept in the dark like a baby--a fool! It was
not proper treatment towards your wife, Angus," was the petulant answer,
as Sybilla drew herself from his arm, which came as a mute peacemaker to
encircle her waist.

"Now you are a child indeed. I did it from love--believe me or not, it
was so--that you might not be pained with the knowledge of my struggles,
toils, and cares. And was not the reward, the wealth, all for you?"

"No; it wasn't."

"Pray, hear reason, Sybilla!" her husband continued, in those quiet,
unconcerned tones, which, to a woman of quick feelings and equally quick
resentments, were sure to add fuel to fire.

"I will not hear reason. When you have these four years been rolling in
wealth, and your wife and child were--O Angus!" and she began to weep.

Captain Rothesay tried at first, by explanations and by soothings, to
stop the small torrent of fretful tears and half-broken accusations. All
his words were misconstrued or misapplied. Sybilla would not believe but
that he had slighted, ill-used, _deceived_ her.

At the term the husband rose up sternly.

"Mrs. Rothesay, who was it that deceived me?"

He pointed to the child, and the glance of both rested on little Olive.

She sat, her graceful playthings fallen from her hands, her large soft
eyes dilated with such a terrified wonder, that both father and mother
shrank before them. That fixed gaze of the unconscious child seemed like
the reproach