"Did I?" and he regarded her steadily, with the same languorous admiration in his eyes--"But, my dear Lady Sibyl, time alters our ideas, and I am not sure whether you and your excellent husband are of the same opinion as you were when you started on your wedding-tour. You may not want me now!" He said this with a significance to which I paid no heed whatever. "Not want you!" I exclaimed--"I shall always want you Lucio,--you are the best friend I ever had, and the only one I care to keep. Believe me!--there's my hand upon it!" He looked at me curiously for a minute,--then turned his head towards my wife. "And what does Lady Sibyl say?" he asked in a gentle, almost caressing tone. "Lady Sibyl says," she answered with a smile, and the colour coming and going in her cheeks--"that she will be proud and glad if you will consider Willowsmere your home as long as you have leisure to make it so,--and that she hopes,--though you are reputed to be a hater of women,--" here she raised her beautiful eyes and fixed them full upon him--"you will relent a little in favour of your present châtelaine!" With these words, and a playful salutation, she passed out of the room into the garden, and stood on the lawn at a little distance from us, her white robes shimmering in the mellow autumnal twilight,--and Lucio, springing up from his seat, looked after her, clapping his hand down heavily on my shoulder. "By Heaven!" he said softly, "A perfect woman! I should be a churl to withstand her,--or you, my good Geoffrey,"--and he regarded me earnestly--"I have led a very devil of a life since I saw you last,--it's time I reformed,--upon my soul it is! The peaceful contemplation of virtuous marriage will do me good!--send for my luggage to the station, Geoffrey, and make the best of me,--_I've come to stay!_" XXIX