“Are you ill, Sybil?” she exclaimed; “is anything the matter?”
“A little—fatigued,” gasped Sybil; “I thought you might be ready to go home.”
“I am,” cried Madeleine; “I am quite ready. Good evening, Mr. Ratcliffe. I will see you tomorrow. Lord Skye, shall I take leave of the Princess?”
“The Princess retired half an hour ago,” replied Lord Skye, who saw the situation and was quite ready to help Sybil; “let me take you to the dressing-room and order your carriage.”
Mr. Ratcliffe found himself suddenly left alone, while Mrs. Lee hurried away, torn by fresh anxieties. They had reached the dressing-room and were nearly ready to go home, when Victoria Dare suddenly dashed in upon them, with an animation of manner very unusual in her, and, seizing Sybil by the hand, drew her into an adjoining room and shut the door.
“Can you keep a secret?” said she abruptly.
“What!” said Sybil, looking at her with open-mouthed interest; “you don’t mean—are you really—tell me, quick!”
“Yes!” said Victoria relapsing into composure; “I am engaged!”
“To Lord Dunbeg?”
Victoria nodded, and Sybil, whose nerves were strung to the highest pitch by excitement, flattery, fatigue, perplexity, and terror, burst into a paroxysm of laughter, that startled even the calm Miss Dare.
“Poor Lord Dunbeg! don’t be hard on him, Victoria!” she gasped when at last she found breath; “do you really mean to pass the rest of your life in Ireland? Oh, how much you will teach them!”
“You forget, my dear,” said Victoria, who had placidly enthroned herself on the foot of a bed, “that I am not a pauper. I am told that Dunbeg Castle is a romantic summer residence, and in the dull season we shall of course go to London or somewhere. I shall be civil to you when you come over. Don’t you think a coronet will look well on me?”
Sybil burst again into laughter so irrepressible and prolonged that it puzzled even poor Dunbeg, who was impatiently pacing the corridor outside. It alarmed Madeleine, who suddenly opened the door. Sybil recovered herself, and, her eyes streaming with tears, presented Victoria to her sister:
“Madeleine, allow me to introduce you to the Countess Dunbeg!”
But Mrs. Lee was much too anxious to feel any interest in Lady Dunbeg. A sudden fear struck her that Sybil was going into hysterics because Victoria’s engagement recalled her own disappointment. She hurried her sister away to the carriage.
XII
They drove home in silence, Mrs. Lee disturbed with anxieties and doubts, partly caused by her sister, partly by Mr. Ratcliffe; Sybil divided between amusement at Victoria’s conquest, and alarm at her own boldness in meddling with her sister’s affairs. Desperation, however, was stronger than fear. She made up her mind that further suspense was not to be endured; she would fight her battle now before another hour was lost; surely no time could be better. A few moments brought them to their door. Mrs. Lee had told her maid not to wait for them, and they were alone. The fire was still alive on Madeleine’s hearth, and she threw more wood upon it. Then she insisted that Sybil must go to bed at once. But Sybil refused; she felt quite well, she said, and not in the least sleepy; she had a great deal to talk about, and wanted to get it off her mind. Nevertheless, her feminine regard for the “Dawn in June” led her to postpone what she had to say until with Madeleine’s help she had laid the triumph of the ball carefully aside; then, putting on her dressing-gown, and hastily plunging Carrington’s letter into her breast, like a concealed weapon, she hurried back to Madeleine’s room and established herself in a chair before the fire. There, after a moment’s pause, the two women began their long-deferred trial of strength, in which the match was so nearly equal as to make the result doubtful; for, if Madeleine were much the cleverer, Sybil in this case knew much better what she wanted, and had a clear idea how she meant to gain it, while Madeleine, unsuspicious of attack, had no plan of defence at all.
“Madeleine,” began Sybil, solemnly, and with a violent palpitation of the heart, “I want you to tell me something.”
“What is it, my child?” said Mrs. Lee, puzzled, and yet half ready to see that there must be some connection between her sister’s coming question and the sudden illness at the ball, which had disappeared as suddenly as it came.
“Do you mean to marry Mr. Ratcliffe?”
Poor Mrs. Lee was quite disconcerted by the directness of the attack. This fatal question met her at every turn. Hardly had she succeeded in escaping from it at the ball scarcely an hour ago, by a stroke of good fortune for which she now began to see she was indebted to Sybil, and here it was again presented to her face like a pistol. The whole town, then, was asking it. Ratcliffe’s offer must have been seen by half Washington, and her reply was awaited by an immense audience, as though she were a political returning-board. Her disgust was intense, and her first answer to Sybil was a quick inquiry:
“Why do you ask such a question? have you heard anything—has anyone talked about it to you?”
“No!” replied Sybil; “but I must know; I can see for myself without being told, that Mr. Racliffe is trying to make you marry him. I
