Lionel had never spoken of his love.  He knew that his marriage with Sibylla West would be so utterly distasteful to Mr. Verner, that he was content to wait.  He knew that Sibylla could not mistake him—­could not mistake what his feelings were; and he believed that she also was content to wait until he should be his own master and at liberty to ask for her.  When that time should come, what did she intend to do with Frederick Massingbird, who made no secret to her that he loved her and expected to make her his wife?  Sibylla did not know; she did not much care; she was of a careless nature, and allowed the future to take its chance.

The only person who had penetrated to the secret of her love for Frederick Massingbird was her father, Dr. West.

“Don’t be a simpleton, child, and bind yourself with your eyes bandaged,” he abruptly and laconically said to her one day.  “When Verner’s Pride falls in, then marry whoever is its master.”

“Lionel will be its master for certain, will he not?” she answered, startled out of the words.

“We don’t know who will be its master,” was Dr. West’s rejoinder.  “Don’t play the simpleton, I say, Sibylla, by entangling yourself with your cousin Fred.”

Dr. West was one who possessed an eye to the main chance; and, had Lionel Verner been, beyond contingency, “certain” of Verner’s Pride, there is little doubt but he would have brought him to book at once, by demanding his intentions with regard to Sibylla.  There were very few persons in Deerham but deemed Lionel as indisputably certain of Verner’s Pride as though he were already in possession of it.  Dr. West was probably an unusually cautious man.

“It is singular,” observed Lionel, looking at the moth.  “The day has been sunshiny, but far too cold to call these moths into life.  At least, according to my belief; but I am not learned in entomology.”

“Ento—­, what a hard word!” cried Sibylla, in her prettily affected manner.  “I should never find out how to spell it.”

Lionel smiled.  His deep love was shining out of his eyes as he looked down upon her.  He loved her powerfully, deeply, passionately; to him she was as a very angel, and he believed her to be as pure-souled, honest-hearted, and single-minded.

“Where did my aunt go to-day?” inquired Sibylla, alluding to Mrs. Verner.

“She did not go anywhere that I am aware of,” he answered.

“I saw the carriage out this afternoon.”

“It was going to the station for Miss Tempest.”

“Oh! she’s come, then?  Have you seen her?  What sort of a demoiselle does she seem?”

“The sweetest child!—­she looks little more than a child!” cried Lionel impulsively.

“A child, is she?  I had an idea she was grown up.  Have any of you at Verner’s Pride heard from John?”

“No.”

“But the mail’s in, is it not?  How strange that he does not write!”