Lucian was in great agony of mind. Every moment that had passed since he left Amethyst had added to the tumult within him; but he stood up straight, and spoke clearly and to the point.
“You were with my mother; I need not repeat her story. Amethyst denies it utterly. She was never there with him. But she says she took a walk with him in the shrubbery, and that you met them.—Well, I saw you with them!”
“Well!” said Sylvester, in a tone of noncommittal.
“She gave him a packet. There was some mystery between them?”
Sylvester was silent, and Lucian hurried on—“Lady Haredale brought up one of the little girls to say that it was some childish present. She—Amethyst—did not confirm it, but—Oh, I cannot discuss it, or her—” stamping his foot impatiently. “But she won’t speak out. It is maddening, Sylvester?”
Poor Lucian appealed for he knew not what—contradiction, advice, sympathy; and yet all the time he was fully conscious how unfit it was that he should make any appeal at all on such a matter.
“Lucian,” cried Sylvester, starting up, and driving his hands into his pockets as he walked about the room, “she has got involved in some ugly coil. Take her, and ask her if it should come between you. Abide by her answer. She loves you—I know she loves you; no one could see her with you, and doubt it. Take her out of the snares. Before Heaven, I would!”
“Yes,” said Lucian, after a moment’s silence, “I know she loves me. But, sometimes, even then.—And oh, my God, if she did not tell me the truth! They were all lying.”
He sat down on the window-seat, and stared out at the trees in the rectory garden,—delicate acacias, with their fine green leaves dancing against the blue sky. He watched them, and noticed their soft fluttering motion, without really heeding them at all. Sylvester looked at his young fair face with its set lips and contracted brows, and saw how the hand on his knee trembled.
“My mother didn’t make a mistake?” he said, presently.