“I am about to marry,” said Lionel, plunging into the news headlong. “And I fear that you will not approve my choice. Nay, I know you will not.”
A foreshadowing of the truth came across her then. She grew deadly pale, and put up her hands, as if to ward off the blow. “Oh, Lionel! don’t say it! don’t say it!” she implored. “I never can receive her.”
“Yes you will, mother,” he whispered, his own face pale too, and his tone one of painful intreaty. “You will receive her for my sake.”
“Is it—she?”
The aversion with which the name was avoided was unmistakable. Lionel only nodded a grave affirmative.
“Have you engaged yourself to her?”
“I have. Last night.”
“Were you mad?” she asked in a whisper.
“Stay, mother. When you were speaking against Sibylla at breakfast, I refrained from interference, for you did not then know that defence of her was my duty. Will you forgive me for reminding you that I cannot permit it to be continued, even by you?”
“But, do you forget that it is not a respectable alliance for you?” resumed Lady Verner. “No, not a respectable—”
“I cannot listen to this; I pray you cease!” he broke forth, a blaze of anger darkening his face. “Have you forgotten of whom you are speaking, mother? Not respectable!”
“I say that it is not a respectable alliance for you—Lionel Verner,” she persisted. “An obscure surgeon’s daughter, he of not too good repute, who has been out to the end of the world, and found her way back alone, a widow, is not a desirable alliance for a Verner. It would not be desirable for Jan; it is terrible for you?”
“We shall not agree upon this,” said Lionel, preparing to take his departure. “I have told you, mother, and I have no more to say. Except to urge—if I may do so—that you will learn to speak of Sibylla with courtesy, remembering that she will shortly be my wife.”
Lady Verner caught his hand as he was retreating.
“Lionel, my son, tell me how you came to do it,” she wailed. “You cannot love her! the wife, the widow of another man! It must have been the work of a moment of folly. Perhaps she drew you into it!”
The suggestion, the “work of a moment of folly,” was so very close a representation of what it had been, of what Lionel was beginning to see it to have been now, that the rest of the speech was lost to him in the echo of that one sentence. Somehow, he did not care to refute it.
“She will be my wife, respected and honoured,” was all he answered, as he quitted the room.
Lady Verner followed him. He went straight out, and she saw him walk hastily across the courtyard, putting on his hat as he traversed it. She wrung her hands, and broke into a storm of wailing despair, ignoring the presence of Decima and Lucy Tempest.
“I had far rather that she had stabbed him!”
The words excited their amazement. They turned to Lady Verner, and were struck with the marks of agitation on her countenance.
“Mamma, what are you speaking of?” asked Decima.
Lady Verner pointed to Lionel, who was then passing through the front gates.
“I speak of him,” she answered, “my darling; my pride; my much-loved son. That woman has worked his ruin.”
Decima verily thought her mother must be wandering in her intellect. Lucy could only gaze at Lady Verner in consternation.
“What woman?” repeated Decima.
“She. She who has been Lionel’s bane. She who came and thrust herself into his home last night in her unseemly conduct. What passed between them, Heaven knows; but she has contrived to cajole him out of a promise to marry her.”
Decima’s pale cheek turned to a burning red. She was afraid to ask questions.
“Oh, mamma! it cannot be!” was all she uttered.
“It is, Decima. I told Lionel that he could not love her, who had been the wife of another man: and he did not refute it. I told him she must have drawn him into it, and that he left unanswered. He replied that she would be his wife, and must be honoured as such. Drawn in to marry her! one who is so utterly unworthy of him! whom he does not even love! Oh, Lionel, my son, my son!”
In their own grievous sorrow they noticed not the face of Lucy Tempest, or what they might have read there.
Lionel went direct to the house of Dr. West. It was early; and the Miss Wests’, fatigued with their night’s pleasure, had risen in a scuffle, barely getting down at the breakfast hour. Jan was in the country attending on a patient, and, not anticipating the advent of visitors, they had honoured Master Cheese with hair en papillotes. Master Cheese had divided his breakfast hour between eating and staring. The meal had been sometime over, and the young gentleman had retired, but the ladies sat over the fire in unusual idleness, discussing the dissipation they had participated in. A scream from the two arose upon the entrance of Lionel, and Miss Amilly flung her pocket-handkerchief over her head.
“Never mind,” said Lionel, laughing good-naturedly. “I have seen curl-papers before, in my life. Your sitting here quietly tells me that you do not know what has occurred.”
“What has occurred?” interrupted Deborah, before he could continue. “It—it—” her voice grew suddenly timid—“is nothing bad about papa?”
“No, no. Your sister has arrived from Australia. In this place of gossip, I wonder the news has not travelled to Jan or to Cheese.”
They had started up, poor things, their faces flushed, their eyelashes glistening, forgetting the little episode of the mortified vanity, eager to embrace Sibylla.
“Come back from Australia!” uttered Deborah in wild astonishment. “Then where is she, that she is not here, in her own home?”
“She came to mine,” replied Lionel. “She