?" she quickly asked.

"I must go somewhere and do something. I cannot lead an idle life,
living upon other people's charity, or let you live upon it. I must find
some way of earning a livelihood: in London, perhaps. While I am looking
out, you would be with your sisters."

"Then, Lionel, hear me!" she cried, her throat working, her blue eyes
flashing with a strange light. "I will _never_ go home to my sisters! I
will never, so long as I live, enter that house again, to reside! You
are no better than a bear to wish me to do it."

What was he to do? She was his wife, and he must provide for her; but
she would go neither into lodgings, nor to the proposed home. Lionel set
his wits to work.

"I wonder--whether--my mother--would invite us there, for a short
while?" The words were spoken slowly, reluctantly, as if there were an
undercurrent of strong doubt in his mind. "Would you go to Deerham Court
for a time, Sibylla, if Lady Verner were agreeable?"

"Yes," said Sibylla, after a minute's consideration. "I'd go there."

Deeming it well that something should be decided, Lionel went
downstairs, caught up his hat, and proceeded to Deerham Court. He did
not say a word about his wife's caprice; or that two plans, proposed to
her, had been rejected. He simply asked his mother whether she would
temporarily receive him and his wife, until he could look round and
decide on the future.

To his great surprise, Lady Verner answered that she would; and answered
readily. Lionel, knowing the light in which she regarded his wife, had
anticipated he knew not what of objection, if not of positive refusal.

"I wish you to come here, Lionel; I intended to send for you and tell
you so," was the reply of Lady Verner. "You have no home to turn to,
and I could not have it said that my son in his strait was at fault for
one. I never thought to receive your wife inside my doors, but for your
sake I will do so. No servants, you understand, Lionel."

"Certainly not," he answered. "I cannot afford servants now as a matter
of luxury."

"I can neither afford them for you, nor is there room in my house to
accommodate them. This applies to that French maid of yours," Lady
Verner pointedly added. "I do not like the woman; nothing would induce
me to admit her here, even were circumstances convenient. Any attendance
that your wife may require, she shall have."

Lionel smiled a sad smile. "Be easy, mother. The time for my wife to
keep a French mai