The avowal proved only what he suspected. Nevertheless it hurt him greatly--grieved him to his heart's core. Not so much the spending of the money, as the keeping the fact from him. What a lack of good feeling, of confidence, it proved. He bent towards her, speaking gently, kindly. Whatever might be her faults to him, her provocations, he could never behave otherwise to her than as a thorough gentleman, a kind husband. "It was not right to use that cheque, Sibylla. It was made out in Madame Lebeau's name, and should have been paid to her. But why did you not tell me?" Sibylla shrugged her shoulders in place of answer. She had picked up many such little national habits of Mademoiselle Benoite's. Very conspicuous just then was the upright line on Lionel's brow. "The amount altogether is, you perceive, eleven hundred pounds," he continued. "Yes," said Sibylla. "She's a cheat, that Madame Lebeau. I shall make Benoite write her a French letter, and tell her so." "It must be paid. But it is a great deal of money. I cannot continue to pay these large sums, Sibylla. I have not the money to do it with." "Not the money! When you know you are paying heaps for Lady Verner! Before you tell me not to spend, you should cease supplying her." Lionel's very brow flushed. "My mother has a claim upon me only in a degree less than you have," he gravely said. "Part of the revenues of Verner's Pride ought to have been hers years ago; and they were not." "If my husband had lived--if he had left me a little child--Verner's Pride would have been his and mine, and never yours at all." "Hush, Sibylla! You don't know how these allusions hurt me," he interrupted, in a tone of intense pain. "They are true," said Sibylla. "But not--forgive me, my dear, for saying it--not the less unseemly." "Why do you grumble at me, then?" "I do not grumble," he answered in a kind tone. "Your interests are mine, Sibylla, and mine are yours. I only tell you the fact--and a fact it is--that our income will not stand these heavy calls upon it. Were I to show you how much you have spent in dress since we were married--what with Paris, London, and Heartburg--the sum total would frighten you." "You should not keep the sum total," resentfully spoke Sibylla. "Why do you add it up?" "I must keep my accounts correctly. My uncle taught me that." "I am sure he did not teach you to grumble at me," she rejoined. "I look upon Verner's Pride as mine, more than yours; if it had not been for the death of my husband, you would never have had it." Inexpressibly vexed--vexed beyond the power to answer, for he would not trust himself to answer--Lionel prepared to quit the room. He began to wish he had not had Verner's Pride, if this was to be its domestic peace. Sibylla petulantly threw the French book from her lap upon the table, and it fell down with its page open.