Beauty, rank, wealth--you may win them for the asking." A slightly self-conscious smile crossed the lips of Lionel.
"You are surely not going to introduce again that nonsense about Mary Elmsley!" he exclaimed.

"I should never like her, never marry her, therefore--" "Did you not allude to _her_ when you spoke but now--that it was not Lucy Tempest you should make your wife ?" "No." "To whom, then?
Lionel, I must know it." Lionel's cheek flushed scarlet.

"I am not going to marry yet--I have no intention of it.

Why should this conversation have arisen ?" The words seemed to arouse a sudden dread on the part of Lady Verner.
"Lionel," she gasped in a low tone, "there is a dreadful fear coming over me.

Not Lady Mary! Some one else! I remember Decima said one day that you appeared to care more for Sibylla West than for her, your sister.