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"You and Sir Rufus. That, so far, is not altered." "Then I will not act. No, Stephen Verner, long and close as our friendship has been, I will not countenance an act of injustice. I will not be your executor, unless Verner's Pride goes, as it ought, to Lionel Verner." "Lionel has forfeited it." "Forfeited it! how can he have forfeited it? Is this" Mr.
After this little item of information, which called the colour into Lucy's cheek she best knew why but which Lionel appeared to listen to impassively, Jan got off the table "Good-bye, Lionel," said he, holding out his hand. "What's your hurry, Jan?" asked Lionel. "Ask my patients," responded Jan, "I am off the first thing to Mrs. Verner, and then shall take my round. I wish you luck, Lionel."
Lucy drew from the window with a half sigh; it seemed almost a pity to shut out that pleasant moonlight: turned and stirred the fire into a blaze. Sibylla's chilly nature caused them to enter upon evening fires before other people thought of them. "Shall I ring for lights, Mrs. Verner?" "I suppose it's time, and past time," was Sibylla's answer. "I must have been asleep ever so long."
She raised her large blue eyes, swimming in tears, to Lionel. It completely disarmed him. He forgot all his prudence, all his caution; he forgot things that it was incumbent upon him to remember; and, as many another has done before him, older and wiser than Lionel Verner, he suffered a moment's impassioned impulse to fix the destiny of a life.
Lionel Verner had remained in Paris six months, when summoned thither by the accident to his brother. The accident need not have detained him half that period of time; but the seductions of the gay French capital had charms for Lionel. From the very hour that he set foot in Verner's Pride on his return, he found that Mr. Verner's behaviour had altered to him.
Verner made a deprecatory movement of the hands, as much as to say that it was no business of hers. "Lionel, I have only one request to make of you: never speak of the estate to me again, or of anything connected with its management. You are its sole master, and can do as you please. Shall you turn me out?" Lionel's face flushed. "No, Mrs. Verner," he almost passionately answered.
Lionel was turning with them; but Lady Verner, who had seen him from the window, sent a servant to desire him to come to her. "Is it anything particular, mother?" he hastily inquired. "I am going with Decima and Lucy." "It is so far particular, Lionel, that I wish you to stay with me, instead of going with them," answered Lady Verner.
If Frederick Massingbird were indeed in life, Verner's Pride was no longer his. But it was not of that he thought; it was of the calamity that would involve his wife. A calamity which, to the refined, sensitive mind of Lionel Verner, was almost worse than death itself. What would the journey bring forth for him? Should he succeed in seeing Captain Cannonby?
She blamed herself; not Lionel. Remarkably simple and humble-minded, Lucy Tempest was accustomed to think of every one before herself. Who was she, that she should have assumed Lionel Verner was growing to love her?
"Ah, sir, there's a old saying, 'Live and learn. That was in the days when I thought you'd be a over strict master; we have got to know better now, taught from experience. It was a lucky day for the Verner Pride estate when that lost codicil was brought to light! The Mr. Massingbirds be dead, it's true, but there's no knowing what might have happened; the law's full of quips and turns.
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