"I shall not go away again," was Lionel's answer; and Mrs. Verner breathed freely. To be emancipated from what she had regarded as the great worry of life, was felt to be a relief. Now she could eat and sleep all day, and never need be asked a single question, or hear whether the outside world had stopped, or was going on still.
"You will just pen a few words for me to Sibylla, Lionel," she called out. "I am past much writing now."
"If it be necessary that I should," he coldly replied.
"And send them with the remittance," concluded Mrs. Verner. "You will know how much to send. Tell Sibylla that Verner's Pride is no longer mine, and I cannot invite her to it. It would hardly be the—the thing for a young girl, and she's little better, to be living here with you all day long, and I always shut up in my room. Would it?"
Lionel somewhat haughtily shrugged his shoulders. "Scarcely," he answered.
"She must go to her sisters, of course. Poor girl! what a thing it seems to have to return to her old house again!"
Jan put in his head. "I thought you said you were coming, Lionel?"
"So I am—this instant." And they departed together: encountering Mr. Bitterworth in the road.
He grasped hold of Lionel in much excitement.
"Is it true—what people are saying? That you have come into Verner's Pride?"