The question appeared to divert her thoughts into another channel.  “Cannonby!  What should bring him here?  Did you expect him to come?”

“Drink your wine, and then I will tell you,” he said, holding the glass towards her.

She pushed the wine from her capriciously.  “I don’t want wine now.  I am hot.  I should like some water.”

“I will get it for you directly.  Tell me, first of all, how you came to know of this?”

“Deborah told me.  She sent for me out of the drawing-room where I was so happy, to tell me this horrid tale.  Lionel”—­sinking her voice again to a whisper—­“is—­he—­here?”

“I cannot tell you—­”

“But you must tell me,” she passionately interrupted.  “I will know.  I have a right to know it, Lionel.”

“When I say I cannot tell you, Sibylla, I mean that I cannot tell you with any certainty.  I will tell you all I do know.  Some one is in the neighbourhood who bears a great resemblance to him.  He is seen sometimes at night; and—­and—­I have other testimony that he has returned from Australia.”

“What will be done if he comes here?”

Lionel was silent.

“Shall you fight him?”

“Fight him!” echoed Lionel.  “No.”

“You will give up Verner’s Pride without a struggle!  You will give up me!  Then, are you a coward, Lionel Verner?”

“You know that I would give up neither willingly, Sibylla.”

Grievously pained was his tone as he replied to her.  She was meeting this as she did most other things—­without sense or reason; not as a thinking, rational being.  Her manner was loud, her emotion violent; but deep and true her grief was not.  Depth of feeling, truth of nature, were qualities that never yet had place in Sibylla Verner.  Not once, throughout all their married life, had Lionel been so painfully impressed with the fact as he was now.

“Am I to die for the want of that water?” she resumed.  “If you don’t get it for me I shall ring for the servants to bring it.”

He opened the door again without a word.  He knew quite well that she had thrown in that little shaft about ringing for the servants, because it would not be pleasant to him that the servants should intrude upon them then.  Outside the door, about to knock at it, was Deborah West.

“I must go home,” she whispered.  “Mr. Verner, how sadly she is meeting this!”

The very thought that was in Lionel’s heart.  But not to another would he cast a shade of reflection on his wife.

“It is a terrible thing for any one to meet,” he answered.  “I could have wished, Miss West, that you had not imparted it to her.  Better that I should have done it, when it must have been done.”

“I did it from a good motive,” was the reply of Deborah, who was looking sadly down-hearted, and had evidently been crying.  “She ought to leave you until some certainty shall be arrived at.”