[CHAPTER XII.]
'Oui, sans doute, tout meurt; ce monde est un grand rêve,
Et le peu de bonheur qui nous vient en chemin,
Nous n'avons pas plus tôt ce roseau dans la main,
Que le vent nous l'enlève.'
Alfred De Musset.
Sibyl continued pale and listless, and presently Mr. Loftus found fault with her gowns. They were not new enough. The colours of her tea-gowns did not suit her. He suggested that she should go to London to Lady Pierpoint's house for a few days to see her dressmaker, and added, as an afterthought, that he should like her to consult the specialist to whom she had gone on former occasions, and whose name he had reason to remember.
Sibyl received the suggestion of this visit in silence. She did not oppose herself to it, but left the room to shed a torrent of angry tears in private. The truth, which seldom visited her feeble judgment, did not tell her that Mr. Loftus was anxious about her health. Hysteria took up the tale instead, and officiously informed her that he was tired of her. He wanted to get rid of her. Men were always like that after they had been married a little time. What was a woman's love and devotion to them when the first novelty had worn off? She would go. She would certainly go; and when she was gone she would write to him, telling him that she saw only too plainly that his love for her was dead, and that she had decided never to return, and at the same time making over to him her entire fortune, reserving only for herself a pittance, on which she would live in seclusion in a cottage in some remote locality.
She was somewhat consoled as she thought over the dignified, the harrowing letter which she would compose in London. Parts of it, as she repeated them to herself, moved her to tears. A new sullenness was added to the previous listlessness of her demeanour. She parted from Mr. Loftus with studied indifference.
Mr. Loftus missed her, not altogether unpleasantly, when she left him. It was the first time that she had been a day away from him since their marriage. Life was certainly very tranquil without her. He wrote her a charming little letter every day of the three days she was away.
Doll was with him on business. Now that Sibyl was absent, something of the old affection and confidence returned between them, which shrank away in her presence; but not quite all. At times, as they were talking, the younger man longed to break down the slight, almost imperceptible barrier that his stupid untimely silence had raised. But he could not do it. He could not take the plunge. Mr. Loftus, however, who would not have done such a thing for worlds, unwittingly gave him a push.
'The spring coppice wants thinning,' he said to Doll the third morning. 'We will go up and mark the trees this afternoon.'
'I am going away to-day,' said Doll sullenly.