CHAPTER LXIV.
ENDURANCE.
Lionel had probably obeyed the summons sooner than was expected by Lady Verner and Decima; sooner, perhaps, than they deemed he could have obeyed it. Neither of them was in the breakfast-room: no one was there but Lucy Tempest.
By the very way in which she looked at him—the flushed cheeks, the eager eyes—he saw that the tidings had reached her. She timidly held out her hand to him, her anxious gaze meeting his. Whatever may have been the depth of feeling entertained for him, Lucy was too single-minded not to express all she felt of sympathy.
"Is it true?" were her first whispered words, offering no other salutation.
"Is what true, Lucy?" he asked. "How am I to know what you mean?"
They stood looking at each other. Lionel waiting for her to speak; she hesitating. Until Lionel was perfectly certain that she alluded to that particular report, he would not speak of it. Lucy moved a few steps from him, and stood nervously playing with the ends of her waist-band, the soft colour rising in her cheeks.
"I do not like to tell you," she said simply. "It would not be a pleasant thing for you to hear, if it be not true."
"And still less pleasant for me, if it be true," he replied, the words bringing him conviction that the rumour they had heard was correct. "I fear it is true, Lucy."