Verner's Pride. Henry Wood

      "My little friend, you have yet to learn that things, not years, tire us of life."

      Lucy shook her head.

      "No; I have not to learn it. I know it must be so. Will you please to come to the window?"

      Lionel, partly because his tormentor (may the word be used? he was sick, bodily and mentally, and would have lain still for ever) was a young lady, partly to avoid the trouble of persisting in "No," rose, and took his seat in the arm-chair.

      "What an obstinate nurse you would make, Lucy! Is there anything else, pray, that you wish me to do?"

      She did not smile in response to his smile; she looked very grave and serious.

      "I would do all that Jan says, were I you," was her answer. "I believe in Jan. He will get you well sooner than Dr. West."

      "Believe in Jan?" repeated Lionel, willing to be gay if he could. "Do you mean that Jan is Jan?"

      "I mean that I have faith in Jan. I have none in Dr. West."

      "In his medical skill? Let me tell you, Lucy, he is a very clever man, in spite of what Jan may say."

      "I can't tell anything about his skill. Until Jan spoke now I did not know but he was treating you rightly. But I have no faith in himself. I think a good, true, faithful-natured man should be depended on for cure, more certainly than one who is false-natured."

      "False-natured!" echoed Lionel. "Lucy, you should not so speak of Dr. West. You know nothing wrong of Dr. West. He is much esteemed among us at Deerham."

      "Of course I know nothing wrong of him," returned Lucy, with some slight surprise. "But when I look at people I always seem to know what they are. I am sorry to have said so much. I—I think I forgot it was to you I spoke."

      "Forgot!" exclaimed Lionel. "Forgot what?"

      She hesitated at the last sentence, and she now blushed vividly.

      "I forgot for the moment that he was Sibylla's father," she simply said.

      Again the scarlet rose in the face of Lionel. Lucy leaned against the window-frame but a few paces from him, her large soft eyes, in their earnest sympathy, lifted to his. He positively shrank from them.

      "What's Sibylla to me?" he asked. "She is Mrs. Frederick Massingbird."

      Lucy stood in penitence. "Do not be angry with me," she timidly cried. "I ought not to have said it to you, perhaps. I see it always."

      "See what, Lucy?" he continued, speaking gently, not in anger.

      "I see now much you think of her, and how ill it makes you. When Jan asked just now if you had anything on your mind to keep you back, I knew what it was."

      Lionel grew hot and cold with a sudden fear. "Did I say anything in my delirium?"

      "Nothing at all—that I heard of. I was not with you. I do not think anybody suspects that you are ill because—because of her."

      "Ill because of her!" he sharply repeated, the words breaking from him in his agony, in his shrinking dread at finding so much suspected. "I am ill from fever. What else should I be ill from?"

      Lucy went close to his chair and stood before him meekly.

      "I am so sorry," she whispered. "I cannot help seeing things, but I did not mean to make you angry."

      He rose, steadying himself by the table, and laid his hand upon her head, with the same fond motion that a father might have used.

      "Lucy, I am not angry—only vexed at being watched so closely," he concluded, his lips parting with a faint smile.

      In her earnest, truthful, serious face of concern, as it was turned up to him, he read how futile it would be to persist in his denial.

      "I did not watch you for the purpose of watching. I saw how it was, without being able to help myself."

      Lionel bent his head.

      "Let the secret remain between us, Lucy. Never suffer a hint of it to escape your lips."

      Nothing answered him save the glad expression that beamed out from her countenance, telling him how implicitly he might trust to her.

      CHAPTER XXIV.

      DANGEROUS COMPANIONSHIP

      Lionel Verner grew better. His naturally good constitution triumphed over the disease, and his sick soreness of mind lost somewhat of its sharpness. So long as he brooded in silence over his pain and his wrongs, there was little chance of the sting becoming much lighter; it was like the vulture preying upon its own vitals; but that season of silence was past. When once a deep grief can be spoken of, its great agony is gone. I think there is an old saying, or a proverb—"Griefs lose themselves in telling," and a greater truism was never uttered. The ice once broken, touching his feelings with regard to Sibylla, Lionel found comfort in making it his theme of conversation, of complaint, although his hearer and confidant was only Lucy Tempest. A strange comfort, but yet a natural one, as those who have suffered as Lionel did may be able to testify. At the time of the blow, when Sibylla deserted him with coolness so great, Lionel could have died rather than give utterance to a syllable betraying his own pain; but several months had elapsed since, and the turning-point was come. He did not, unfortunately, love Sibylla one shade less; love such as his cannot be overcome so lightly; but the keenness of the disappointment, the blow to his self-esteem—to his vanity, it may be said—was growing less intense. In a case like this, of faithlessness, let it happen to man or to woman, the wounding of the self-esteem is not the least evil that must be borne. Lucy Tempest was, in Lionel's estimation, little more than a child, yet it was singular how he grew to love to talk with her. Not for love of her—do not fancy that—but for the opportunity it gave him of talking of Sibylla. You may deem this an anomaly; I know that it was natural; and, like oil poured upon a wound, so did it bring balm to Lionel's troubled spirit.

      He never spoke of her save at the dusk hour. During the broad, garish light of day, his lips were sealed. In the soft twilight of the evening, if it happened that Lucy was alone with him, then he would pour out his heart—would tell of his past tribulation. As past he spoke of it; had he not regarded it as past, he never would have spoken. Lucy listened, mostly in silence, returning him her earnest sympathy. Had Lucy Tempest been a little older in ideas, or had she been by nature and rearing less entirely single-minded, she might not have sat unrestrainedly with him, going into the room at any moment, and stopping there, as she would had he been her brother. Lucy was getting to covet the companionship of Lionel very much—too much, taking all things into consideration. It never occurred to her that, for that very reason, she might do well to keep away. She was not sufficiently experienced to define her own sensations; and she did not surmise that there was anything inexpedient or not perfectly orthodox in her being so much with Lionel. She liked to be with him, and she freely indulged the liking upon any occasion that offered.

      "Oh, Lucy, I loved her! I did love her!" he would say, having repeated the same words perhaps fifty times before in other interviews; and he would lean back in his easy-chair, and cover his eyes with his hand, as if willing to shut out all sight save that of the past. "Heaven knows what she was to me! Heaven only knows what her faithlessness has cost!"

      "Did you dream of her last night, Lionel?" answered Lucy, from her low seat where she generally sat, near to Lionel, but with her face mostly turned from him.

      And it may as well be mentioned that Miss Lucy never thought of such a thing as discouraging Lionel's love and remembrance of Sibylla. Her whole business in the matter seemed to be to listen to him, and help him to remember her.

      "Ay," said Lionel, in answer to the question. "Do you suppose I should dream of anything else?"

      Whatever