Читать книгу: «Leonore Stubbs», страница 13

But she was not praying—she was not even thinking;—there was nothing more to think about,—she rose and crept down the slope, to where lay a deep, black pool.

And out of the pool crawled a toad. Its head came first; the ugly, flat head that, but for its movement, might have been mistaken for a lump of slime,—then one long-jointed, sluggish leg, and then the other, followed by a sudden leap, and a leap, ah! the loathsome thing!—in her direction. Involuntarily she also leaped—backwards.

Not there—not just there; she shuddered as the reptile startled in its turn, turned and plunged again into the water, where, no doubt, were others of its kind, many and vile....

The stem of a bulrush shook, suggestive of hideous gambols at its roots....

The whole place looked so foul and evil that a wild desire to flee from it did actually, and as it were involuntarily, drag Leonore's nerveless feet a few yards from the edge—but there she halted, muttering to herself in broken, meaningless utterances. She thought she was goading herself back—back—back;—and she began to go back.

"Caught you up at last, Leo. What a walker you are! I followed you out, and guessed I should overtake you if I held on," continued the cheerful voice, as Paul tumbled down the bank, slipping and sliding, and steadying himself with his stick till he reached Leo's side. "A bit damp here though, isn't it?"

"Go away—go away, Paul." She tried to push him aside, he was between her and the pool.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to intrude; but, I say this is just the sort of thing to be very pleasant at the time, but–"

"Go—go!"

"But it will find out the weak spot afterwards, and then the aches and pains!"

"I shall have no aches and pains, and you—you needn't stay. I don't want you, I won't have you;" cried Leo, wildly. "Why did you come? Why did you follow me? Who gave you leave to spy upon me?"

"I took my own leave," said Paul, and dropped his cheery note, fixing his eyes steadily on hers. "You will come away—from here—with me;"—and she felt his hand close upon her arm.

She looked at it, and at him stupidly. She made no outcry.

"Come," repeated Paul.

She shook her head.

"You are going to come. That was what brought me here. Do you understand me, Leo?"

"No—no." She made a faint, weak effort to release herself.

"You must obey me."

"I shall not."

"You must obey a Higher Power than mine. In God's name I command you to leave this baleful spot."

"Paul!" But she obeyed, cowering.

In silence they moved on, neither knowing which way they trod, then suddenly: "It was you who broke that branch I heard—you who tracked me all the way—I heard something—it was you I heard? How could you?—how could you?—?" cried Leo, sobbing aloud. "Oh, to think that it was you!"

"It was I, dear Leo, sent to save you in your hour of need. You are ill—you are not yourself—you know not what you are doing;—but there is One who watches over His children, and in the hour of danger and temptation–"

"But why did he send you? Paul, do you believe you were really sent by Him?" she was awed, but scarcely subdued—"because I don't. I cannot think even God would be so cruel as to choose you——" she broke off panting.

"He chooses His own instruments, Leo. Do not let this distress you, dear little sister—I may call you 'sister,' mayn't I?—You can trust me, can you not? Lean on me," he drew her hand within his arm, "and tell me you forgive–"

"Forgive—forgive?" she sobbed afresh. "Is it I to forgive—I who have done it all? Paul, don't you know? Don't you see?"

"I only see a poor little lamb that has lost its fold."

"But the little lamb has been straying in other folds, and it was so dark there, Paul—so dark and cold,—oh, Paul, why did you stop me? Why—why did you save me? You know. You know;"—her sobs were heartrending.

He was silent.

"You were happy till you came here," said Leo, brokenly. "You loved Maud—at least you thought you did, and she, she still thinks she loves you. She–"

"Hush—no more. You must not say such things, Leo." He was calm no longer; the sweat broke out upon his brow.

"But it is the truth. Oh, it is—it is the truth."

"There are truths that must not be spoken. You must not, you shall not say what you would repent of all your life."

"Who is to speak if I do not? I am the only one–"

"Am I fallen so low that I would let you proclaim the secrets of my coward heart? If my lips are sealed, so shall yours be," he cried, in great agitation. "If I have made a terrible mistake, it is my own mistake, and I shall abide by it."

"Paul—Paul,—" she clung more closely to him. "Say you forgive me, Paul."

"There is nothing to forgive. Take care. You nearly fell, Leo. Try to look where you are going in this dim light." The accents of forced composure fell like cold lead upon her heart. She had touched him for a moment, and a nerve had vibrated to her touch—but he was slipping from her again. He continued:—

"Since your penetration has discovered–"

"Say since I found out the truth, Paul."

"That, if you will." He bent his head. "I cannot, I dare not deny it. It is the truth, God help me—God help us both."

"You and me?" she whispered, faintly.

"Maud and me. I have done her a great wrong, but it shall be the aim of my life to repair it. She shall find me a true and faithful husband–"

"You won't—you can't marry her?"

"What?" said Paul, stopping short.

"You do not love her."

"I loved her once—I shall learn to love her again."

"You will be wretched, miserable—and so will she, now that you know the truth. I would have spared you. I meant to give my life to spare you—oh, Paul, you know I did," she wept passionately—"but now, now when you yourself would not let me do it–"

"Leo?"

She wept on.

"Try to hear me. Try to understand me. Leo, there is a greater thing than Love."

"No, no, there is not—there is not."

"There is." He drew a breath, a long, deep breath. "There is Honour."

She was silent. The tears hung on her cheeks.

"I have lost all besides," said he, simply, "but I have kept that, and will keep it." He paused, and continued: "If Maud were different, other things might also be different, but you know your sister; to break faith with her would be—she could not endure it. I have taught her to believe that I am wholly hers, and she has never seen nor guessed that—that a change has come. And however acutely Maud would feel that, if she knew—which, so help me God, she never shall—she would be infinitely more distressed, more humiliated—her pride—her self-respect—no, it is not to be thought of." He was now walking on alone, and so fast that she could scarcely keep pace with him. She could catch only broken utterances—some perhaps not meant for her. It appeared as though he had forgotten her presence.

"Love? Honour?

 
"Love lost, much lost.
Honour lost, all lost."
 

Honour is not lost—not yet. Happiness? That's nothing. Life is short, and there's another life to look to. A coward turns his back on the fight. A deserter falls out of the ranks. The strong should hold up the weak"—suddenly he looked round for her—"Leo?"

Leo meekly raised her eyes, overmastered, dumb. It was the hardest moment of Paul's life. One look, one word between them, and she would have been dragged down into the whirlpool from which it was his part to save her. A great convulsion shook his frame, and he set his teeth and swore, then drew her gently to his side.

"My little sister must forget all this. It is a bad dream and it is over and past. She must promise me–"

"What—Paul?"

"She must promise me—solemnly—before God, in Whose Presence we are"—he looked up, the sky was clear and shining overhead—"that she will never—mark me, Leo, never—as long as life lasts, allow herself to think of cutting it short again. Before God, Leo!"

He lifted her hand, still fast in his, as though invoking the Unseen Presence, and almost inaudibly she repeated after him the words of the promise.

"We must hasten home now," said Paul, with a rapid transition to another tone. "The short cut from Claymount is somewhere hereabouts," looking round—"and we shall get back," he took out his watch, "before the house is shut up, if we walk briskly. You can walk, can't you? I mean, of course you will have to walk, but can you step out? If you would care to have an arm–"

"I can walk quite well, thank you—but, oh, Paul, just this—mayn't I say it–?"

"Better not, dear." The word slipped out; he was unconscious of it, but she heard. They hurried home.

CHAPTER XVII.
A KNIGHT TO THE RESCUE

"No, you don't—and don't you think it."

Somebody, and that a formidable personage, had been a witness of the scene just narrated.

We would not for a moment call poor Val Purcell an eavesdropper au naturel, but he certainly had a talent for picking up by the wayside things which did not exactly belong to him.

Val, as we know, was not quite like other people.

It was only now and then that he showed this; in the ordinary give and take of society he passed muster well enough, and no one would more readily have spurned the notion of doing what others did not do—that being the poor boy's code of conduct,—yet he is not to be hardly judged if occasionally it failed him at a pinch. Wherefore if when passing through the Abbey woods on the afternoon in question, he heard voices and crept near to peep and listen, let it be believed that the feeling which arrested his footsteps was in its way innocent. His curiosity was roused, and he had a hearty sympathy with sylvan lovers; so if Jack and Jill were courting, there was no reason why he should not see which Jack and Jill it was? He would not tell tales, not he.

But when, instead of the expected rustic figures, his starting eyes beheld Paul Foster and—not Paul's betrothed—not the girl with whom alone he had a right to wander in that dim solitude at that mystic hour—but Leonore, Leonore who was nothing, or should have been nothing to her sister's lover, curiosity gave place to another feeling.

So how? He would spy if he chose.

He would jolly well discover what the devil those two were about? They were up to no good hiding away by themselves in the woods, and, damnation! holding each other's hands.

That beast Paul—he had always thought him a beast—no, he hadn't, but he did now—so he was playing a double game, was he? Engaged to Maud, and flirting with Leo under the rose?

Leo could flirt, of course; she had made a fool of himself once,—but he had got it into his head that she rather disliked Paul;—she had never cracked him up as the rest did,—oh, she was a cunning, crafty little jade, and he would put a spoke in her wheel, be hanged if he didn't!

The undergrowth was so thick at the point to which Paul had half led, half dragged his trembling companion at this juncture, that it was easy for a third person to draw very near unperceived,—and though much that now passed was unintelligible to one not possessed of the key of the mystery, Val heard enough.

He did not indeed hear any love-making,—but instinct guided him straight to the mark which another by reasoning might have failed to reach. He was as fully convinced that Maud had been supplanted as if he had heard the fact avowed a hundred times; and though he stole off, afraid to linger, before Paul's final adjuration which might have puzzled and mystified him, he had got as much as his brain could carry, and got it in very good order.

The next day he presented himself at Boldero Abbey. His plan of campaign, conned over and over with ever-increasing wrath and valour, was not confided to gran. Gran had never liked Maud, and in old days he would often affect a hopeless passion for the latter for the sake of getting amusement out of the old lady. Then an argument would ensue, and he very nearly felt the passion. He could not see that one Boldero was not as good as another; and as he could not be bluntly told that Leonore had money while her sister had not, he held to it that gran was prejudiced to the point of injustice. Accordingly he kept his own counsel now, and plumed himself thereon mightily.

And Fortune favoured him; for though all the ladies were at home, the one he sought was by herself in the drawing-room, when he was ushered in.

"I say, it's you I want," said Val, immediately. "Look here, Maud, I want to see you alone, and without any one's knowing. Where are the others?"

"Sue and Sybil are out–"

"But I was told they were in!"

"That's Grier's laziness. He has grown intolerably lazy of late. As he is under notice to go, he won't put himself out of his way for any one of us, and says 'At Home' or 'Not at Home,' just as it suits him, without taking the trouble of finding out."

"Where are they gone?" demanded Val, as usual diverted from his course by any chance observation. Despite the purpose with which he was big, he could not help feeling inquisitive as to which house in the neighbourhood was being honoured.

"Only to the rectory," said Maud, indifferently; "but they are there, and there they will stay for ages. It is a sort of farewell visit. What do you want to see me about?"

"Stop a bit. There's Leo. Is she—where is she?"

"In bed. She caught a chill yesterday going out in the damp."

"You are sure she is not out in the damp again, to-day?" said Val, significantly, and gave his companion what he considered a meaning look. "Hey? Are you sure of that, Maud?"

"As I was with her five minutes ago, I think I may be," retorted Maud, and convinced by this preamble that Leo, not herself, was the real object of the visit, she was less gracious than before. "I thought you said it was me you wanted?"—she threw out, however.

"So it is. I don't want Leo—not a bit. I don't want her ever again, that's more. You'd say the same if you'd seen what I saw. Give me time, and I'll tell you all about it. That's what I came for."

"Really, Val, I—it's not the thing, you know, to come to one of us with complaints of the other. If you have any fault to find with Leo, you must say so to herself."

"You wait till you hear. You won't be so keen for me to go to Leo–"

"But I really can't," said Maud, rising. Her pride revolted at the idea of being the confidant of some silly quarrel, which did not concern her in the slightest. "I don't know anything about it, and I don't want to know. Do talk of other things."

"What? When I came here on purpose–?"

"Hush,—you needn't be excited. Of course if you are determined to speak, you had better speak and be done with it; but I warn you I shan't take your part, or any one's part–"

"As long as you don't take Paul's part," cried he, with a flash of inspiration, "the rest doesn't matter."

"Paul's part?" For very amazement Maud fell into her chair again, and stared at the speaker as though he had struck her a blow. "What—what did you say? Did you say 'Paul's part'?"

"Yes, I did—I did say just that. I told you you'd jolly well better hear me out instead of being so infernally supercilious. Oh, I say, I'm sorry I said that, Maud; I'm—I'm sorry for you altogether."

"You speak in enigmas, Val,"—but her laugh was a little forced; his earnestness and persistency told; and then there was "Paul's part"?

"He is—but look here, you needn't mind what he is. Don't you take it to heart–"

"I know what Paul is, thank you," haughtily.

"That's just what you don't–"

"Excuse me, Val–"

"Excuse me, Maud–"

"You are impertinent now, I shall listen no longer."

"Listen no longer? You haven't even begun to listen. Confound it, you shouldn't treat a fellow like this, when a fellow is doing all he can for you, and feels for you as—as I do. You know I've always been fond of you, Maud," softening, "and I've come to say that if you'll marry me instead–"

"Have you gone crazy, Val?" But vanity whispered a flattering solution of the problem, and his ear detected an opening. To the same suggestion Leo had cried "Nonsense!" and although affronted at first, he had ultimately accepted the "Nonsense!" with philosophy,—but he had weapons in reserve now, and would soon show that he was not "crazy". No, damn it, he was not "crazy". The idea!

With the rush of a torrent he told his tale.

"And you saw this—and you heard this?" said Maud, at last. "You did not dream it? You—you are sure you did not dream it?"

"I'll take my solemn Davy I saw it all, and heard it all. Leo is a little cat; and as for Paul, to think that he should dare—but I say, Maud, you will checkmate him, won't you?"

"Hush;" she waved him back, for he had pressed forward. "Let me think—let me think. If this is true—but it isn't, it can't be true,—" and she pressed her hands upon her forehead. A thousand trifles, insignificant in themselves, which had secretly perplexed and chafed her spirit of late, rushed back upon her memory. Paul had lost the air of a happy lover. He had become moody, silent, solitary in his habits. He had, it is true, obeyed to the strictest extent the dictates of custom, but there were moments which in the retrospect maddeningly bore out Val's accusation. He had played—he was still playing her false? She was, or would be, a laughing-stock? She quailed and faltered.

"Take me," urged Val. "It's not—not only for your own sake, though of course that's what I'm thinking of most, but–"

"I must know first. I must make sure of the truth first."

"If you do, you'll give the show away. You ought never to let out that you know anything, and throw him over before he throws you. Then—there you are!"

"You mean that I must not unveil Paul's treachery? That he is to go unpunished?"

"You can't cut off your nose to spite your face, you know. Once you have a row with Paul the fat is in the fire, and it will be all over the place that he's jilted you."

"And for my own sister;" said she, bitterly.

She longed to rush to Leo, to Paul, to both severally or together, and denounce them. She could scarce restrain herself from proclaiming her wrongs upon the housetops, but—she paused and looked thoughtfully at Val. There was no doubt about Val's integrity. Up to his lights he was universally accounted "straight," and she need never fear being tricked and cheated a second time. He had acted well by her at this crisis, and to reward him? The idea grew in favour.

On the other hand, how terrible would be her position if she refused—and Position was a god she worshipped. She would be talked about, pointed at, and worst of all, pitied. Her ignominy—she could not face it.

"I say, Maud, you know I am fond of you?"

Yes, poor boy, he was fond of her; she had always felt complacently secure of his fondness, though occasionally nettled of late by misgivings as to his having transferred his first allegiance elsewhere. Leo had been bidden to Claymount oftener than she; and gran had made much of the younger sister, whereas she had always been cool and distant to the elder.

Maud, in her slow way, had resented this, and given herself considerable airs towards the old lady after her engagement. To triumph over her—over everybody—vindicate her own charms, and prove to the world the unswerving devotion of her old admirer would be something, would at any rate be better than nothing.

She sighed gently, and emboldened, he pressed his suit. A long interview closed with this decision. If satisfied as to the truth of his statements—but satisfied she must be—she would send for him next day, and—and do whatever he asked her.

"That's right, that's all I want;" his face shone with satisfaction. "Of course you wouldn't have wanted me if you had had Paul—not that Paul is any shakes now, (and whatever he is, he's not for you," in parenthesis,) "and—and I'm your man. I'll see you through, Maud; trust me."

"You will make all the arrangements?—that is, if I send for you?"

"Won't I? I had the whole thing in my head when I came here, and I'll work it out again going home. I'm a bit flustered just now, but you'll see if I don't do the square thing. We'll be off by the first train for London town and a registry office—but don't I just wish it was Gretna Green, and a gallop through the night! I have often thought what a jolly skidaddle one might have behind four horses to Gretna Green."

"Go, now;" said Maud, authoritatively. "But if I send word to come, Come."

And the message went, "Come".

Mr. Anthony Boldero and Mr. John Purcell were putting their heads together in the window of a Pall Mall club. The two gentlemen had a subject in common to discuss; and as old acquaintances, who had recently become new neighbours, they had a great deal to say and said it freely.

"A most disgraceful business;" the one bald head wagged, and the other responded. "'Pon my soul," asserted Mr. Purcell, vivaciously, "it is no wonder it killed the old lady. She might have hung on long enough, but for that. Although she was seventy-seven. Seventy-seven. A ripe age, Boldero."

He was only a little over sixty himself, and had often wondered how long his step-mother was going to keep him out of the property? It had for years been a secret grievance that a second wife should have had its tenancy for life, and made her descendant, a poor creature like Val, its master in appearance if not in fact. He could not therefore affect to be inconsolable.

Was it possible that the "disgraceful business" had had anything to do with General Boldero's demise?—he queried next. Could he have known, or suspected anything?

Mr. Anthony Boldero thought not. The general had been as cock-a-hoop as possible over his daughter's engagement; as insufferably patronising and condescending as over the first affair.

"And it turned out a fiasco, of course," observed his friend. "While he lived, Boldero contrived to keep going his own version, I'm told; and they sealed up the girl as tight as wax to prevent her telling tales—but every one knows now. So you think he was crowing over Maud's marriage too? Well, well, what would he have said to this?"

They then talked of Major Foster. Major Foster had behaved like a gentleman, taken himself quietly out of the way, and made no fuss. Mr. Anthony Boldero thought he was probably well out of the connection; the Boldero girls were too big for their boots, and Maud was the worst of them. All the same, no man likes to be jilted.

"Is it the case that your nephew has had nothing left him by his grandmother?—" he suddenly demanded, having disposed of Paul.

"He's not my full nephew, you know; he's only my half-brother's son. And, fact is, the old lady had nothing, or next to nothing to leave. Her money was all jointure, and reverts to the estate."

"And you have come in for Claymount free and unencumbered, as I have for the Boldero property? Ah!" said his companion, thoughtfully.

Presently he looked up. "Suppose between us we do something for those two lunatics, Purcell? We can't let them starve, eh? Suppose we make a bit of a purse, and ship them off to the colonies? British Columbia, eh? That's the only place for them and their sort; and if they can be put on a decent footing there, they won't be in a hurry to come back again. Eh? What d'ye say? I'm willing, if you are. I have no great affection for these relatives of mine, but after all, they are relatives, and blood is thicker than water."

"Well—yes;" said Mr. Purcell, dubiously. He had been mentally putting off this evil day, uneasily conscious that it was bound to come.

"The general was the worst of the lot," proceeded his companion; "the most arrogant, conceited, humbugging, old swelled-head I ever came across. But he's gone, and the poor girls—well, I'm sorry for them. Sue is a good creature. I hardly know the younger ones,—but none of them have given me any trouble since I had to deal with them. Except for this scandal of Maud's of course—and anyhow that doesn't affect me. Well, what about her and her precious husband? You are bound to do something for him, I suppose?"

And it ended in Mr. Purcell's doing it.

Before Maud sailed, it was necessary for her to take leave of her sisters, and this was Leonore's worst time. Till then she had been shielded from the outer world by the illness which was impending when Maud described it as a chill contracted by going out in the damp, and the event which followed was generally accredited with developing the chill into something more serious,—but although Sue was obliged to ask a month's grace from Mr. Anthony Boldero, in order that her sister might be sufficiently recovered to run no risk from moving—(a request which he had sufficient goodness of heart to ignore when alleging that he had had no trouble about family arrangements)—Leo was now well enough to have no excuse for evading a farewell scene.

In respect to Maud she knew not what to think. Had any hint or rumour of the truth ever reached her, or could it have been mere coincidence that caused her flight to follow Paul's confession almost on the instant?

Had Paul's vaunted inflexibility broken down? Had he reconsidered his resolution?

Yet, if so, this must have become known; it was impossible that it should have been kept secret; and he, not Maud would have been accounted guilty.

"Where is Paul? What is Paul doing?" The faint bleat of a weak and wounded creature came incessantly from Leonore's pillow, all through the first long day that followed the esclandre. They hid it from her that Paul had gone.

Sue and Sybil would fain have kept him, yearning to breathe forth contrition and sympathy every hour, every moment—but he could not be prevailed upon. They thought he was too deeply hurt, too cruelly affronted,—and they thought they would not tell Leo.

It was all so inexplicable that even the very servants who know us, their masters and mistresses, better than we know each other, could draw no conclusions, and the prevailing amazement downstairs found vent in ejaculations of "Miss Maud! Miss Maud of all people! Now if it had been Leonore"—but the speaker, a pert young thing, was sharply called to order for impudence—"'Mrs. Stubbs' then,—the name ain't so pretty she need have it always tagged on to her"—with a giggle—"she's got it in her to run away with any number of 'em, she has. And Val was her one, Mary and me thought. But, Lor, it's looks that tells: and pretty as she is, Leonore—Mrs. Stubbs," giggling again, "can't stand up to her that's Mrs. Val now. See her in her weddin' dress—my! We little thought she wasn't never to put it on in earnest, when we was let to have a sight of her that day it come home. A real treat it was!"

Maud's first letter was a triumph of equivocal diplomacy. She did not utter a single verbal falsehood, and without such contrived to blindfold every one. Her feelings towards her affianced husband had changed of late—("of late" is an elastic term)—she had "learnt to value the lifelong devotion of her dear Val,"—(when learned was again left to the imagination)—and "seeing no course left but to break with Paul before it was too late," she had fled to avoid a scene which would have only given him pain, and not altered her resolution.

"Had you any sort of premonition of this, Paul?" Sue inquired in tremulous accents, an hour having elapsed since the letter came.

"She put one or two rather strange questions to me yesterday;" hesitated he.

"Might I ask—could you tell me what they were?"

"I think I would rather not. It can do no good now." He spoke gently, but she could not press the point.

"She knows;" said Paul, to himself. "How she knows I cannot fathom; but all this about the change in her feelings is only a blind. She knows; and though she has given me my release, I can never avail myself of it."

He left the Abbey within the hour.

And this was now a story three months old, and Maud was coming to say "Good-bye" before beginning a new life in another land.

Heretofore she had obstinately rejected the olive branch held out by Sue. Sue, acting as mouthpiece for the three, had written time and again, begging that for all their sakes no estrangement should take place; entreating the delinquents to believe that they would only meet with kindness and affection in Eaton Place, where the sisters were established, and where room was plentiful. Would not Val and Maud come and make their home also there for the present?

But though the offer, delicately worded, might have been presumed tempting enough to two almost penniless people, it was coldly declined.

"And she seems as if she were angry with us!" cried Sybil, "she who dragged the whole family through the mud, and left us to bear the brunt!"

"Certainly she does write as if she bore us a grudge," owned Sue, "and yet, how can she? What have we done? What has any one of us done that Maud should refuse to be one with us again? I am sorry, but of course if that is the spirit in which poor Maud receives overtures of peace, I really—really I do not think I can go on thrusting them upon her." For Sue also had her pride, though it was a poor, weak, back-boneless pride, which would have melted at the first soft word from her sister.

The emigration concocted in the club window, however, effected what all besides had failed to do. By the time the final arrangements were complete and the tickets taken, Maud, on the eve of departure, was won upon to come to Eaton Place, though she still declined to take up her abode there.

Nor would she come alone.

"Val's with her," announced Sybil, having peeped from the balcony; "she might have left him behind, I think. I did want to find out if I could, what Maud really means by all this? Why we are in disgrace, because she has behaved like an idiot?"

"We shall never discover that now;" said Sue,—and the event proved her right.

Maud had taken the best and surest precaution against conversation of an intimate nature. She had put on one of the smartest dresses of her elaborate trousseau—having left it unpacked on purpose,—and her step as she entered was that of a stranger on a foreign soil. She was studiously polite; she inquired with a becoming air of solicitude after their healths, and she looked kindly at Sue:—but a jest of Sybil's fell flat, and Leo was conscious that her sister's lips never actually touched her cheek.

Leo herself was trembling from head to foot.

"We have been rather anxious about dear Leo," said Sue, with a tender glance towards the shrinking figure in the background.