"And what shall you do? Turned, like a beggar, out on the face of the earth?" Like a beggar? Ay, far more like a beggar than Lady Verner, in her worst apprehension, could picture. "I must make my way on the earth as I best can," he replied in answer, "I shall leave Europe--probably for India. I may find some means, through my late father's friends, of getting my bread there." Lady Verner appeared to appreciate the motive which no doubt dictated the suggested course. She did not attempt to controvert it; she only wrung her hands in passionate wailing. "Oh, that you had not married her! that you had not subjected yourself to this dreadful blight!" Lionel rose. There were limits of endurance even for his aching heart. Reproaches in a moment of trouble are as cold iron entering the soul. "I will come in another time when you are more yourself, mother," was all he said. "I could have borne sympathy from you this morning, better than complaint." He shook hands with her. He laid his hand in silence on Decima's shoulder with a fond pressure as he passed her; her face was turned from him, the tears silently streaming down it. He nodded to Lucy, who stood at the other end of the room, and went out. But, ere he was half-way across the ante-room, he heard hasty footsteps behind him. He turned to behold Lucy Tempest, her hands extended, her face streaming down with tears. "Oh, Lionel, please not to go away thinking nobody sympathises with you! I am so grieved; I am so sorry! If I can do anything for you, or for Sibylla, to lighten the distress, I will do it." He took the pretty, pleading hands in his, bending his face until it was nearly on a level with hers. But that emotion nearly over-mastered him in the moment's anguish, the very consciousness that he might be free from married obligations, would have rendered his manner cold to Lucy Tempest. Whether Frederick Massingbird was alive or not, _he_ must be a man isolated from other wedded ties, so long as Sibylla remained on the earth. The kind young face, held up to him in its grief, disarmed his reserve. He spoke out to Lucy as freely as he had done in that long-ago illness, when she was his full confidante. Nay, whether from her looks, or from some lately untouched chord in his memory reawakened, that old time was before him now, rather than the present, as his next words proved. "Lucy, with one thing and another, my heart is half broken. I wish I had died in that illness. Better for me! Better--perhaps--for you." "Not for me," said she, through her tears. "Do not think of me. I wish I could help you in this great sorrow!" "Help from you of any sort, Lucy, I forfeited in my blind wilfulness," he hoarsely whispered. "God bless you!" he added, wringing her hands to pain. "God bless you for ever!" She did not loose them. He was about to draw his hands away, but she held them still, her tears and sobs nearly choking her.