A change had come over Sibylla.  She had thrown herself at full length on a sofa, and was beginning to sob.  He went up to her, and spoke gravely, not unkindly, his arms folded before him.

“Sibylla, when is this line of conduct to cease?  I am nearly wearied out—­nearly,” he repeated, putting his hand to his brow, “wearied out.  If I could bear the exposure for myself, I cannot bear it for my wife.”

She rose up and sat down on the sofa facing him.  The hectic of her cheeks had turned to scarlet.

“You do love her!  You care for her more than you care for me.  Can you deny it?”

“What part of my conduct has ever told you so?”

“I don’t care for conduct,” she fractiously retorted, “I remember what papa said, and that’s enough.  He said he saw how it was in the old days—­that you loved her.  What business had you to love her?”

“Stay, Sibylla!  Carry your reflections back, and answer yourself.  In those old days, when both of you were before me to choose—­at any rate, to ask—­I chose you, leaving her.  Is it not a sufficient answer?”

Sibylla threw back her head on the sofa-frame, and began to cry.

“From the hour that I made you my wife, I have striven to do my duty by you, tenderly as husband can do it.  Why do you force me to reiterate this declaration, which I have made before?” he added, his face working with emotion.  “Neither by word nor action have I been false to you.  I have never, for the briefest moment, been guilty behind your back of that which I would not be guilty of in your presence.  No! my allegiance of duty has never swerved from you.  So help me Heaven!”

“You can’t swear to me that you don’t love her?” was Sibylla’s retort.

It appeared that he did not intend to swear it.  He went and stood against the mantel-piece, in his old favourite attitude, leaning his elbow on it and his face upon his hand—­a face that betrayed his inward pain.  Sibylla began again:  to tantalise him seemed a necessity of her life.

“I might have expected trouble when I consented to marry you.  Rachel Frost’s fate might have taught me the lesson.”

“Stay,” said Lionel, lifting his head.  “It is not the first hint of the sort that you have given me.  Tell me honestly what it is you mean.”

“You need not ask; you know already.  Rachel owed her disgrace to you.”

Lionel paused a moment before he rejoined.  When he did, it was in a quiet tone.

“Do you speak from your own opinion?”

“No, I don’t.  The secret was intrusted to me.”

“By whom?  You must tell me, Sibylla.”

“I don’t know why I should not,” she slowly said, as if in deliberation.  “My husband trusted me with it.”

“Do you allude to Frederick Massingbird?” asked Lionel, in a tone whose coldness he could not help.

“Yes, I do.  He was my husband,” she resentfully added.  “One day, on the voyage to Australia, he dropped a word that made me think he knew something about that business of Rachel’s, and I teased him to tell me who it was who had played the rogue.  He said it was Lionel Verner.”