“For my mistress, I think, sir.”

And at that moment Lionel heard the steps of his wife upon the stairs.  She was coming down, dressed.  He turned in, and met her in the hall.  “Are you going out?” he cried, his voice betokening surprise.

“I can’t be worried with this uncertainty,” was Sibylla’s answer, spoken anything but courteously.  “I am going to make Deborah tell me all she knows, and where she heard it.”

“But——­”

“I won’t be dictated to, Lionel,” she querulously stopped him with.  “I will go.  What is it to you?”

He turned without a remonstrance, and attended her to the carriage, placing her in it as considerately as though she had met him with a wife’s loving words.  When she was seated, he leaned towards her.  “Would you like me to accompany you, Sibylla?”

“I don’t care about it.”

He closed the door in silence, his lips compressed.  There were times when her fitful moods vexed him above common.  This was one.  When they knew not but the passing hour might be the last of their union, the last they should ever spend together, it was scarcely seemly to mar its harmony with ill temper.  At least, so felt Lionel.  Sibylla spoke as he was turning away.

“Of course, I thought you would go with me.  I did not expect you would grumble at me for going.”

“Get my hat, Bennet,” he said.  And he stepped in and took his seat beside her.

Courteously, and smiling as though not a shade of care were within ages of him, Lionel bowed to his guests as the carriage passed the breakfast-room windows.  He saw that curious faces were directed to him; he felt that wondering comments, as to their early and sudden drive, were being spoken; he knew that the scene of the past evening was affording food for speculation.  He could not help it; but these minor annoyances were as nothing, compared to the great trouble that absorbed him.  The windows passed, he turned to his wife.

“I have neither grumbled at you for going, Sibylla, nor do I see cause for grumbling.  Why should you charge me with it?”

“There! you are going to find fault with me again!  Why are you so cross?”

Cross!  He cross!  Lionel suppressed at once the retort that was rising to his lips; as he had done hundreds of times before.

“Heaven knows, nothing was further from my thoughts than to be ‘cross,’” he answered, his tone full of pain.  “Were I to be cross to you, Sibylla, in—­in—­what may be our last hour together, I should reflect upon myself for my whole life afterwards.”

“It is not our last hour together!” she vehemently answered.  “Who says it is?”

“I trust it is not.  But I cannot conceal from myself the fact that it maybe so.  Remember,” he added, turning to her with a sudden impulse, and clasping both her hands within his in a firm, impressive grasp—­“remember that my whole life, since you became mine, has been spent for you; in promoting your happiness; in striving to give you more love than has been given to me.  I have never met you with an unkind word; I have never given you a clouded look.  You will think of this when we are separated.  And, for myself, its remembrance will be to my conscience as a healing balm.”