drive, while she has a husband at her side to drive for her,” was the reply of Lionel.
“Well—if I had such a husband as you to drive for me, I don’t know but I might subscribe to that doctrine,” candidly avowed Mrs. Jocelyn. “I would not miss these ponies, were I Mrs. Verner. They are calling me. It is my turn, I suppose.”
“She ran back to the shooting. Sibylla was following her, but Lionel caught her hand, and drew her into a covered walk. Placing her hand within his arm, he began to pace it.
“I must go back, too, Lionel.”
“Presently. Sibylla, I have been terribly vexed this morning.”
“Oh, now Lionel, don’t you begin about ‘vexing,’” interrupted Sibylla, in the foolish, light, affected manner, which had grown worse of late, more intolerable to Lionel. “I have ordered the ponies. Poynton will send them in; and if there’s really not room in the stables, you must see about it, and give orders that room must be made.”
“I cannot buy the ponies,” he firmly said. “My dear, I have given in to your every wish, to your most trifling whim; but, as I told you a few days ago, these ever-recurring needless expenses I cannot stand. Sibylla”—and his voice grew hoarse—“do you know that I am becoming embarrassed?”
“I don’t care if you are,” pouted Sibylla. “I must have the ponies.”
His heart ached. Was this the loving wife—the intelligent companion for whom he had once yearned?—the friend who should be as his own soul? He had married the Sibylla of his imagination; and he awoke to find Sibylla—what she was. The disappointment was heavy upon him always; but there were moments when he could have cried out aloud in its sharp bitterness.
“Sibylla, you know the state in which some of my tenants live; the miserable dwellings they are forced to inhabit. I must change this state of things. I believe it to be a duty for which I am accountable to God. How am I to set about it if you ruin me?”
Sibylla put her fingers to her ears. “I can’t stand to listen when you preach, Lionel. It is as bad as a sermon.”
It was ever thus. He could not attempt to reason with her. Anything like sensible conversation she could not or would not hold. Lionel, considerate to her as he ever was, felt provoked.
“Do you know that this unfortunate affair of Alice Hook’s is laid remotely to me?” he said, a sternness which he could not help in his tone. “People are saying that if I gave them decent dwellings, decent conduct would ensue. It is so. God knows that I feel its truth more keenly than my reproachers.”
“The dwellings are good enough for the poor.”
“Sibylla? You cannot think it. The laws of God and man alike demand a change. “Child,” he continued in a softer tone, as he took her hand in his, “let us bring the case home to ourselves. Suppose that you and I had to sleep in a room a few feet square, no chimney, no air, and that others tenanted it with us? Girls and boys growing up: nay, grown up, some of them; men and women as we are, Sibylla. The beds huddled together, no space between them; sickness, fever—”
“I am only shutting my ears,” interrupted Sibylla. “You pretend to be so careful of me—you would not even let me go to that masked ball in Paris—and yet put these horrid pictures into my mind! I think you ought to be ashamed of it, Lionel. People sleeping in the same room with us!”
“If the picture be revolting, what must be the reality?” was his rejoinder. “They have to endure it.”
“They are used to it,” retorted Sibylla. “They are brought up to nothing better.”
“Just so. And therefore their perceptions of right and wrong are deadened. The wonder is not that Alice Hook has lost herself, but that—”
“I don’t want to hear about Alice Hook,” interrupted Sibylla. “She is not very good to talk about.”
“I have been openly told, Sibylla, that the reproach should lie at my door.”
“I believe it is not the first reproach of the kind that has been cast to you,” answered Sibylla, with cutting sarcasm.
He did not know what she meant, or in what sense to take the remark: but his mind was too pre-occupied to linger on it.
“With these things staring me in the face, how can I find money for superfluous vanities? The time has come when I am compelled to make a stand against it. I will, I must have decent dwellings on my estate, and I shall set about the work without a day’s loss of time. For that reason, if for no other, I cannot buy the ponies.”
“I have bought them,” coolly interrupted Sibylla.
“Then, my dear, you must forgive me if I countermand the purchase. I am resolute, Sibylla,” he continued, in a firm tone. “For the first time since our marriage, I must deny your wish. I cannot let you bring me to beggary, because it would also involve you. Another year or two of this extravagance, and I should be on the verge of it.”
Sibylla flung his arm from her. “Do you want to keep me as a beggar? I will have the ponies!”
He shook his head. “The subject is settled, Sibylla. If you cannot think for yourself, I must think for you. But it was not to speak of the ponies that I brought you here. What is it that you owe to Mrs. Duff?”
Sibylla’s colour heightened. “It is no business of yours, Lionel, what I owe her. There may be some little trifle or other down in her book. It will be time enough for you to concern yourself with my little petty debts when you are asked to pay them.”
“Then that time is the present one, with regard to Mrs. Duff. She applied to me for the money this morning. At least, she asked if I would speak to you—which is the same thing. She says you owe her thirty-two pounds. Sibylla,