Maude!" exclaimed Sybil, with a sudden explosion of energy; "I wish
you had taken him!"

This remark roused Mrs. Lee to new interest: "Why, Sybil," said she,
"surely you are not in earnest?"

"Indeed, I am," replied Sybil, very decidedly. "I know you think I am
in love with Mr. Carrington myself, but I'm not. I would a great deal
rather have him for a brother-in-law, and he is so much the nicest man
you know, and you could help his sisters."

Mrs. Lee hesitated a moment, for she was not quite certain whether it
was wise to probe a healing wound, but she was anxious to clear this
last weight from her mind, and she dashed recklessly forward:

"Are you sure you are telling the truth, Sybil? Why, then, did you say
that you cared for him? and why have you been so miserable ever since he
went away?"

"Why? I should think it was plain enough why! Because I thought, as
every one else did, that you were going to marry Mr. Ratcliffe; and
because if you married Mr. Ratcliffe, I must go and live alone; and
because you treated me like a child, and never took me into your
confidence at all; and because Mr. Carrington was the only person I had
to advise me, and after he went away, I was left all alone to fight Mr.
Ratcliffe and you both together, without a human soul to help me in case
I made a mistake. You would have been a great deal more miserable than I
if you had been in my place."

Madeleine looked at her for a moment in doubt. Would this last? did
Sybil herself know the depth of her own wound? But what could Mrs. Lee
do now?

Perhaps Sybil did deceive herself a little. When this excitement had
passed away, perhaps Carrington's image might recur to her mind a little
too often for her own comfort. The future must take care of itself.
Mrs. Lee drew her sister closer to her, and said: "Sybil, I have made a
horrible mistake, and you must forgive me."

Chapter XIII

NOT until afternoon did Mrs. Lee reappear. How much she had slept she
did not say, and she hardly looked like one whose slumbers had been long
or sweet; but if she had slept little, she had made up for the loss
by thinking much, and, while she thought, the storm which had raged so
fiercely in her breast, more and more subsided into calm. If there was
not sunshine yet, there was at least stillness. As she lay, hour after
hour, waiting for the sleep that did not come, she had at first the keen
mortification of reflecting how easily she had been led by mere v