at Sybilla had done as her first impulse taught her; have clung
about him, crying "Never! never!" murmuring penitent words, as a tender
wife may well do, and in such humility be the more exalted! But she had
still the wayward spirit of a petted child. Fancying she saw her husband
once more at her feet, she determined to keep him there. She wept on,
refusing to be pacified.

At last Angus rose from her side, dignified and cold, his new, not his
old self; the lover no more, but the quiet, half-indifferent husband.
"I see we had better not talk of these things until you are more
composed--perhaps, indeed, not at all. What is past--is past, and cannot
be recalled."

"Angus!" She looked up, frightened at his manner. She determined to
conciliate him a little. "What do you want me to do? To say I am sorry?
That I will--but," with an air of coquettish command, "you must say so
too."

The jest was ill-timed; he was in too bitter a mood. "Excuse me--you
exact too much, Mrs. Rothesay."

"_Mrs. Rothesay!_ Oh, call me Sybilla, or my heart will break!" cried
the young creature, throwing herself into his arms. He did not repulse
her; he even looked down upon her with a melting, half-reproachful
tendernes.

"How happy we might have been! How different had been this coming home
if you had only trusted me, and told me all from the beginning."

"Have you told _me_? Is there nothing you have kept back from me these
five years?"

He started a little, and then said resolutely, "Nothing, Sybilla! I
declare to Heaven--nothing! save, perhaps, some trifles that I would at
any time tell you; now, if you will."

"Oh no! some other time, I am too much exhausted now," murmured Sybilla,
with an air of languor, half real, half feigned, lest perchance she
should lose what she had gained. In the sweetness of this reconciled
"lovers' quarrel," she had almost forgotten its hapless cause. But
Angus, after a pause of deep and evidently conflicting thoughts,
referred to the child.

"She is ours still. I must not forget that. Shall I send for her again?"
he said, as if he wished to soothe the mother's wounded feelings.

Alas! in Sybilla's breast the fountain of mother's feeling was as yet
all sealed. "Send for Olive!" she said, "oh no! Do not, I implore you.
The very sight of her is a pain to me. Let us two be happy together, and
let the child be left to Elspie."

Thus she said, thinking not only to save herself, but him, from
what must be a co