no fault
of hers: Heaven knew that she had striven and prayed against it. When
she caught him up she was out of breath, so swiftly had she sped.

"Lucy!" he exclaimed. "_Lucy!_ What do you do here?"

"I came out to look for you," she simply said; "there was nobody else at
home to come. I went to Jan's, thinking you might be there. Mrs. Verner
has dressed herself to go to Sir Edmund's. You may be in time to stop
her, if you make haste."

With a half-uttered exclamation, Lionel was speeding off, when he
appeared to remember Lucy. He turned to take her with him.

"No," said Lucy, stopping. "I could not go as quickly as you; and a
minute, more or less, may make all the difference. There is nothing to
hurt me. You make the best of your way. It is for your wife's sake."

There was good sense in all she said, and Lionel started off with a
fleet foot. Before Lucy had quite gained the Court she saw him coming
back to meet her. He drew her hand within his arm in silence, and kept
his own upon it for an instant's grateful pressure.

"Thank you, Lucy, for what you have done. Thank you now and ever. I was
too late."

"Is Mrs. Verner gone?"

"She has been gone these ten minutes past, Catherine says. A fly was
found immediately."

They turned into the house; into the sitting-room. Lucy threw off the
large shawl and the shapeless green bonnet: at any other moment she
would have laughed at the figure she must have looked in them. The
tea-things still waited on the table.

"Shall I make you some tea?" she asked.

Lionel shook his head. "I must go up and dress. I shall go after
Sibylla."

CHAPTER LXXXV.

DECIMA'S ROMANCE.

If the fair forms crowding to the _fete_ at Deerham Hall had but known
how near that _fete_ was to being shorn of its master's presence, they
had gone less hopefully. Scarcely one of the dowagers and chaperones
bidden to it, but cast a longing eye to the heir, for their daughters'
sakes; scarcely a daughter but experienced a fluttering of the heart, as
the fond fancy presented itself that she might be singled out for the
chosen partner of Sir Edmund Hautley--for the night, at any rate;
and--perhaps--for the long night of the future. But when the clock
struck six that evening, Sir Edmund Hautley had not arrived.

Miss Hautley was in a fever--as nearly in one as it is in the nature of
a cold, single lady of fifty-eight to go, when some overwhelming
disappointment falls abruptly. According to a