“If the picture be revolting, what must be the reality?” was his rejoinder. “They have to endure it.”

“They are used to it,” retorted Sibylla.  “They are brought up to nothing better.”

“Just so.  And therefore their perceptions of right and wrong are deadened.  The wonder is, not that Alice Hook has lost herself, but that——­”

“I don’t want to hear about Alice Hook,” interrupted Sibylla.  “She is not very good to talk about.”

“I have been openly told, Sibylla, that the reproach should lie at my door.”

“I believe it is not the first reproach of the kind that has been cast on you,” answered Sibylla, with cutting sarcasm.

He did not know what she meant, or in what sense to take the remark; but his mind was too preoccupied to linger on it.  “With these things staring me in the face, how can I find money for superfluous vanities?  The time has come when I am compelled to make a stand against it.  I will, I must, have decent dwellings on my estate, and I shall set about the work without a day’s loss of time.  For that reason, if for no other, I cannot buy the ponies.”

“I have bought them,” coolly interrupted Sibylla.

“Then, my dear, you must forgive me if I countermand the purchase.  I am resolute, Sibylla,” he continued, in a firm tone.  “For the first time since our marriage, I must deny your wish.  I cannot let you bring me to beggary, because it would also involve you.  Another year or two of this extravagance, and I should be on the verge of it.”

Sibylla flung his arms from her.  “Do you want to keep me as a beggar?  I will have the ponies!”

He shook his head.  “The subject is settled, Sibylla.  If you cannot think for yourself, I must think for you.  But it was not to speak of the ponies that I brought you here.  What is it that you owe to Mrs. Duff?”

Sibylla’s colour heightened.  “It is no business of yours, Lionel, what I owe her.  There may be some trifle or other down in her book.  It will be time enough for you to concern yourself with my little petty debts when you are asked to pay them.”

“Then that time is the present one, with regard to Mrs. Duff.  She applied to me for the money this morning.  At least, she asked if I would speak to you—­which is the same thing.  She says you owe her thirty-two pounds.  Sibylla, I had far rather been stabbed than have heard it.”

“A fearful sum, truly, to be doled out of your coffers!” cried Sibylla, sarcastically.  “You’ll never recover it, I should think!”

“Not that—­not that,” was the reply of Lionel, his tone one of pain.  “Sibylla! have you no sense of the fitness of things?  Is it seemly for the mistress of Verner’s Pride to keep a poor woman, as Mrs. Duff is, out of her money; a humble shopkeeper who has to pay her way as she goes on?”

“I wish Fred had lived!  He would never have taken me to task as you do.”