CHAPTER XIX.
THE REVELATION TO LADY VERNER.
IN the drawing-room at Deerham Court, in their new black dresses, sat Lady Verner and Decima; Lucy Tempest with them.

Lady Verner held out her hand to Lionel when he entered, and lifted her face, a strange eagerness visible in its refinement.
"I thought you would come to me, Lionel!" she uttered.

"I want to know a hundred things .-- Decima, have the goodness to direct your reproachful looks elsewhere; not to me.

Why should I be a hypocrite, and feign a sorrow for Stephen Verner which I do not feel?
I know it is his burial-day as well as you know it; but I will not make that a reason for abstaining from questions on family topics, although they do relate to money and means that were once his.

I say it would be hypocritical affectation to do so.