"Thank you, Lucy. It may do her head good. I think it aches much to-night."
He turned, and departed. Lucy noticed that he had left the parchment behind him, and ran after him with it, catching him as he was about to close the hall door. She knew that all such business-looking papers went up to Verner's Pride.
"Did you mean to leave it? Or have you forgotten it?"
He had forgotten it. He took it from her, retaining her hand for a moment. "Lucy, you will not misjudge me?" he said, in a strange tone of pain.
Lucy looked up at him with a bright smile and a very emphatic shake of the head. She knew by instinct that he alluded to the accusation of his wife, touching Rachel Frost. Lucy misjudge him!
"You should have waited to eat some dinner," she gaily said. "Take care you don't faint by the way, as that sick patient of Jan's did the other morning."
Lionel went on. At any rate there was peace outside, if not within; the peace of outward calm. He lifted his hat; he bared his brow, aching with its weight of trouble, to the clear night air; he wondered whether he should have this to bear his whole life long. At the moment of passing the outer gates, the carriage of Sir Rufus Hautley drew up, bearing Decima.
Lionel waited to receive her. He helped her out, and gave her his arm to the hall door. Decima walked with her head down.
"You are silent, Decima. Are you sad?"
"Yes," she answered. "Sir Rufus is dead."