me! Let me go!"

"But, dearest Sybil."

"Let me go, I say! What! will you use your _brute strength to hold me_?"

He dropped his arms, and left her free.

"No; I beg your pardon, Sybil. I thought you were my loving wife," he
said.

"You were mistaken. I am not Rosa Blondelle!" she cried.

"Hush! hush! my dearest Sybil!" he muttered earnestly, as he went and
closed and locked the parlor door, to save her from being seen by the
servants in her present insane passion.

But she swept past him like a storm, and laid her hand on the lock. She
found it fast.

"Open, and let me pass," she cried.

"No, no, my dear Sybil. Remain here until you are calmer, and then tell
me--"

"Let me out, I say!"

"But, dearest Sybil."

"What! would you _keep me a prisoner--by force_?" she cried, with a
cruel sneer.

He unlocked the door and set it wide open.

"No, even though you are a lunatic, as I do believe. Go, and expose your
condition, if you must. I cannot restrain you by fair means, and I will
not by foul."

And Sybil swept from the room, but she did not expose herself. She fled
away to that "chamber of desolation" where she had passed so many
agonizing hours, and threw herself, face downwards, upon the floor, and
lay there in the collapse of utter despair.

Meanwhile Lyon Berners paced up and down the parlor floor.

CHAPTER XII.

"CRUEL AS THE GRAVE."

Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung
From forest cave her shrieking young,
And calm the raging lioness;
But soothe not--mock not my distress.--BYRON.

Lyon Berners was utterly perplexed and troubled. He could not in any way
explain to himself the sudden and furious passion of his wife.

Suddenly it occurred to him that it was in some way connected with the
cards she had thrown into the fire. They were not all burned up. Some
few had fallen scorched upon the hearth. These he gathered up and
examined; and as he looked at one after another, his face expressed, in
turn, surprise, dismay, and amusement. Then he burst out laughing. He
really could not help doing so, serious as the subject was; for upon
every single card, instead of Rosa Blondelle, he had written:

Mrs. ROSA BERNERS.

"Was there ever such a mischief of a mistake?" he exclaimed, as he
ceased laughing and sat down by his table to consider what was to be
done next.