"Go to your house to learn dancing!" echoed he. "Folks would be for putting me into a lunatic asylum. If I do find an hour to myself any odd evening, I have to get to my dissection. I went shares the other day in a beautiful subject——"

"I don't think you need tell me of that, Jan," interrupted Lady Mary, keeping her countenance.

"I wonder you talk to him, Mary," observed Lady Verner, feeling thoroughly ashamed of Jan, and believing that everybody else did. "You hear how he repays you. He means it for good breeding, perhaps."

"I don't mean it for rudeness, at any rate," returned Jan. "Lady Mary knows that. Don't you?" he added, turning to her.

A strangely thrilling expression in her eyes as she looked at him was her only answer. "I would rather have that sort of rudeness from you, Jan," said she, "than the world's hollow politeness. There is so much of false——"

Mary Elmsley's sentence was never concluded. What was it that had broken in upon them? What object was that, gliding into the room like a ghost, on whom all eyes were strained with a terrible fascination? Was it a ghost? It appeared ghastly enough for one. Was it one of Jan's "subjects" come after him to the ball? Was it a corpse? It looked more like that than anything else. A corpse bedizened with jewels.

"She's mad!" exclaimed Jan, who was the first to recover his speech.

"What is it?" ejaculated Sir Edmund, gazing with something very like fear, as the spectre bore down towards him.

"It is my brother's wife," explained Jan. "You may see how fit she is to come."

There was no time for more. Sibylla had her hand held out to Sir Edmund, a wan smile on her ghastly face. His hesitation, his evident discomposure, as he took it, were not lost upon her.

"You have forgotten me, Sir Edmund; but I should have known you anywhere. Your face is bronzed, and it is the only change. Am I so much changed?"

"Yes, you are; greatly changed," was his involuntary acknowledgment in his surprise. "I should not have recognised you for the Sibylla West of those old days."

"I was at an age to change," she said. "I——"

The words were stopped by a fit of coughing. Not the ordinary cough, more or less violent, that we hear in every-day intercourse; but the dreadful cough that tells its tale of the hopeless state within. She had discarded her opera-cloak, and stood there, her shoulders, back, neck, all bare and naked; tres decolletee, as the French would say; shivering palpably; imparting the idea of a skeleton with rattling bones. Sir Edmund Hautley, quitting Decima, took her hand compassionately and led her to a seat.

Mrs. Verner did not like the attention. Pity, compassion was in every line of his face—in every gesture of his gentle hand; and she resented it.

"I am not ill," she declared to Sir Edmund between the paroxysms of her distressing cough. "The wind seemed to take my throat as I got out of the fly, and it is making me cough a little, but I am not ill. Has Jan been telling you that I am?"

She turned round fiercely on Jan as she spoke. Jan had followed her to her chair, and stood near her; he may have deemed that so evident an invalid should possess a doctor at hand. A good thing that Jan was of equable disposition, of easy temperament; otherwise there might have been perpetual open war between him and Sibylla. She did not spare to him her sarcasms and her insults; but never, in all Jan's intercourse with her, had he resented them.

"No one has told me anything about you in particular, Mrs. Verner," was the reply of Sir Edmund. "I see that you look delicate."

"I am not delicate," she sharply said. "It is nothing. I should be very well, if it were not for Jan."

"That's good," returned Jan. "What do I do?"

"You worry me," she answered curtly. "You say I must not go out; I must not do this, or do the other. You know you do. Presently you will be saying I must not dance. But I will."

"Does Lionel know you have come?" inquired Jan, leaving other questions in abeyance.

"I don't know. It's nothing to him. He was not going to stop me. You should pay attention to your own appearance, Jan, instead of to mine; look at your gloves!"

"They split as I was drawing them on," said Jan.

Sibylla turned from him with a gesture of contempt. "I am enchanted that you have come home, Sir Edmund," she said to the baronet.

"I am pleased myself, Mrs. Verner. Home has more charms for me than the world knows of."

"You will give us some nice entertainments, I hope," she continued, her cough beginning to subside. "Sir Rufus lived like a hermit."

That she would not live to partake of any entertainments he might give, Sir Edmund Hautley felt as sure as though he had then seen her in her grave-clothes. No, not even could he be deceived, or entertain the faintest false hope, though the cough became stilled, and the brilliant hectic of reaction shone on her cheeks. Very beautiful would she then have looked, save for her attenuate frame, with that bright crimson flush and her gleaming golden hair.

Quite sufficiently beautiful to attract partners, and one came up and requested her to dance. She rose in acquiescence, turning her back right upon Jan, who would have interposed.

"Go away," said she. "I don't want any lecturing from you."

But Jan did not go away. He laid his hand impressively upon her shoulder. "You must not do it, Sibylla. There's a pond outside; it's just as good you went and threw yourself into that. It would do you no more harm."

She jerked her shoulder away from him; laughing a little, scornful laugh, and saying a few contemptuous words to her partner, directed to Jan. Jan propped his back against the wall, and watched her, giving her a few words in his turn.

"As good try to turn a mule, as turn her."

He watched her through the quadrille. He watched the gradually increasing excitement of her temperament. Nothing could be more pernicious for her; nothing more dangerous; as Jan knew. Presently he watched her plunge into a waltz; and just at that moment his eyes fell on Lionel.

He had just entered; he was shaking hands with Sir Edmund Hautley. Jan made his way to them.

"Have you seen Sibylla, Jan?" was the first question of Lionel to his brother. "I hear she has come."

For answer, Jan pointed towards a couple amidst the waltzers, and Lionel's dismayed gaze fell on his wife, whirling round at a mad speed, her eyes glistening, her cheeks burning, her bosom heaving. With the violence of the exertion, her poor breath seemed to rise in loud gasps, shaking her to pieces, and the sweat-drops poured off her brow.

One dismayed exclamation, and Lionel took a step forward. Jan caught him back.

"It is of no use, Lionel. I have tried. It would only make a scene, and be productive of no end. I am not sure either, whether opposition at the present moment would not do as much harm as is being done."

"Jan!" cried Sir Edmund in an undertone, "is—she—dying?"

"She is not far off it," was Jan's answer.

Lionel had yielded to Jan's remonstrance, and stood back against the wall, as Jan had previously been doing. The waltz came to an end. In the dispersion Lionel lost sight of his wife. A few moments, and strange sounds of noise and confusion were echoing from an adjoining room. Jan went away at his own rate of speed, Lionel in his wake. They had caught the reiterated words, spoken in every phase of terrified tones, "Mrs. Verner! Mrs. Verner!"

Ah, poor Mrs. Verner! That had been her last dance on earth. The terrible exertion had induced a fit of coughing of unnatural violence, and in the straining a blood-vessel had once more broken.



CHAPTER LXXXVII.

THE LAMP BURNS OUT AT LAST.

From the roof of the house to the floor of the cellar, ominous silence reigned in Deerham Court. Mrs. Verner lay in it—dying. She had been conveyed home from the Hall on the morning following the catastrophe. Miss Hautley and Sir Edmund urged her remaining longer, offering every possible hospitality; but poor Sibylla seemed to have taken a caprice against it. Caprices she would have, up to her last breath. All her words were "Home! home!" Jan said she might be moved with safety; and she was taken there.

She seemed none the worse for the removal—she was none the worse for it. She was dying, but the transit had not increased her danger or her pain. Dr. Hayes had been over in the course of the night, and was now expected again.

"It's all waste of time, his coming; he can't do anything; but it is satisfaction for Lionel," observed Jan to his mother.

Lady Verner felt inclined to blame those of her household who had been left at home, for Sibylla's escapade: all of them—Lionel, Lucy Tempest, and the servants. They ought to have prevented it, she said; have kept her in by force, had need been. But she blamed them wrongly. Lionel might have done so had he been present; there was no knowing whether he would so far have exerted his authority, but the scene that would inevitably have ensued might not have been less fatal in its consequences to Sibylla. Lucy answered, and with truth, that any remonstrance of hers to Sibylla would never have been listened to; and the servants excused themselves—it was not their place to presume to oppose Mr. Verner's wife.

She lay on the sofa in her dressing-room, propped up by pillows; her face wan, her breathing laboured. Decima with her, calm and still; Catherine hovered near, to be useful, if necessary; Lady Verner was in her room within call; Lucy Tempest sat on the stairs. Lucy, remembering certain curious explosions, feared that her presence might not be acceptable to the invalid; but Lucy partook of the general restlessness, and sat down in her simple fashion on the stairs, listening for news from the sick-chamber. Neither she nor any one else in the house could have divested themselves of the prevailing excitement that day, or settled to calmness in the remotest degree. Lucy wished from her very heart that she could do anything to alleviate the sufferings of Mrs. Verner, or to soothe the general discomfort.

By and by, Jan entered, and came straight up the stairs. "Am I to walk over you, Miss Lucy?"

"There's plenty of room to go by, Jan," she answered, pulling her dress aside.

"Are you doing penance?" he asked, as he strode past her.

"It is so dull remaining in the drawing-room by myself," answered Lucy apologetically. "Everybody is upstairs."

Jan went into the sick-room, and Lucy sat on in silence; her head bent down on her knees, as before. Presently Jan returned.

"Is she any better, Jan?"

"She's no worse," was Jan's answer. "That's something, when it comes to this stage. Where's Lionel?"

"I do not know," replied Lucy. "I think he went out. Jan," she added, dropping her voice, "will she get well?"

"Get well!" echoed Jan in his plainness. "It's not likely. She won't be here four-and-twenty hours longer."

"Oh, Jan!" uttered Lucy, painfully startled and distressed. "What a dreadful thing! And all because of her going out last night!"

"Not altogether," answered Jan. "It has hastened it, no doubt; but the ending was not far off in any case."

"If I could but save her!" murmured Lucy in her unselfish sympathy. "I shall always be thinking that perhaps if I had spoken to her last night, instead of going out to find Mr. Verner, she might not have gone."

"Look here," said Jan. "You are not an angel yet, are you, Miss Lucy?"

"Not at all like one, I fear, Jan," was her sad answer.

"Well, then, I can tell you for your satisfaction that an angel, coming down from heaven and endued with angel's powers, wouldn't have stopped her last night. She'd have gone in spite of it; in spite of you all. Her mind was made up to it; and her telling Lionel in the morning that she'd give up going, provided he would promise to take her for a day's pleasure to Heartburg, was only a ruse to throw the house off its guard."

Jan passed down; Lucy sat on. As Jan was crossing the courtyard—for he actually went out at the front door for once in his life, as he had done the day he carried the blanket and the black tea-kettle—he encountered John Massingbird. Mr. John wore his usual free-and-easy costume, and had his short pipe in his mouth.

"I say," began he, "what's this tale about Mrs. Lionel? Folks are saying that she went off to Hautley's last night, and danced herself to death."

"That's near enough," replied Jan. "She would go; and she did; and she danced; and she finished it up by breaking a blood-vessel. And now she is dying."

"What was Lionel about, to let her go?"

"Lionel knew nothing of it. She slipped off while he was out. Nobody was in the house but Lucy Tempest and one or two of the servants. She dressed herself on the quiet, sent for a fly, and went."

"And danced!"

"And danced," assented Jan. "Her back and shoulders looked like a bag of bones. You might nearly have heard them rattle."

"I always said there were moments when Sibylla's mind was not right," composedly observed John Massingbird. "Is there any hope?"

"None. There has not been hope, in point of fact, for a long while," continued Jan, "as anybody might have seen, except Sibylla. She has been obstinately blind to it. Although her father warned her, when he was here, that she could not live."

John Massingbird smoked for some moments in silence. "She was always sickly," he presently said; "sickly in constitution; sickly in temper."

Jan nodded. But what he might further have said was stopped by the entrance of Lionel. He came in at the gate, looking jaded and tired. His mind was ill at ease, and he had not been to bed.

"I have been searching for you, Jan. Dr. West ought to be telegraphed to. Can you tell where he is?"

"No, I can't," replied Jan. "He was at Biarritz when he last wrote; but they were about to leave. I expect to hear from him daily. If we did know where he is, Lionel, telegraphing would be of no use. He could not get here."

"I should like him telegraphed to, if possible," was Lionel's answer.

"I'll telegraph to Biarritz, if you like," said Jan. "He is sure to have left it, though."

"Do so," returned Lionel. "Will you come in?" he added to John Massingbird.

"No, thank you," replied John Massingbird. "They'd not like my pipe. Tell Sibylla I hope she'll get over it. I'll come again by and by, and hear how she is."

Lionel went indoors and passed upstairs with a heavy footstep. Lucy started from her place, but not before he had seen her in it.

"Why do you sit there, Lucy?"

"I don't know," she answered, blushing that he should have caught her there, though she had not cared for Jan's doing so. "It is lonely downstairs to-day; here I can ask everybody who comes out of the room how she is. I wish I could cure her! I wish I could do anything for her!"

He laid his hand lightly on her head as he passed. "Thank you for all, my dear child!" and there was a strange tone of pain in his low voice as he spoke it.

Only Decima was in the room then, and she quitted it as Lionel entered. Treading softly across the carpet, he took his seat in a chair opposite Sibylla's couch. She slept—for a great wonder—or appeared to sleep. The whole morning long—nay, the whole night long, her bright, restless eyes had been wide open; sleep as far from her as it could well be. It had seemed that her fractious temper kept the sleep away. But her eyes were closed now, and two dark, purple rims inclosed them, terribly dark on the wan, white face. Suddenly the eyes unclosed with a start, as if her doze had been abruptly disturbed, though Lionel had been perfectly still. She looked at him for a minute or two in silence, and he, knowing it would be well that she should doze again, neither spoke nor moved.

"Lionel, am I dying?"

Quietly as the words were spoken, they struck on his ear with startling intensity. He rose then and pushed her hair from her damp brow with a fond hand, murmuring some general inquiry as to how she felt.

"Am I dying?" came again from the panting lips.

What was he to answer her? To say that she was dying might send her into a paroxysm of terror; to deceive her in that awful hour by telling her she was not, went against every feeling of his heart.

"But I don't want to die," she urged, in some excitement, interpreting his silence to mean the worst. "Can't Jan do anything for me? Can't Dr. Hayes?"

"Dr. Hayes will be here soon," observed Lionel soothingly, if somewhat evasively. "He will come by the next train."

She took his hand, held it between hers, and looked beseechingly up to his face. "I don't want to leave you," she whispered. "Oh, Lionel! keep me here if you can! You know you are always kind to me. Sometimes I have reproached you that you were not, but it was not true. You have been ever kind, have you not?"

"I have ever striven to be so," he answered, the tears glistening on his eyelashes.

"I don't want to die. I want to get well and go about again, as I used to do when at Verner's Pride. Now Sir Edmund Hautley is come home, that will be a good place to visit at. Lionel, I don't want to die! Can't you keep me in life?"

"If by sacrificing my own life, I could save yours, Heaven knows how willingly I would do it," he tenderly answered.

"Why should I die? Why should I die more than others? I don't think I am dying, Lionel," she added, after a pause. "I shall get well yet."

She stretched out her hand for some cooling drink that was near, and Lionel gave her a teaspoonful. He was giving her another, but she jerked her head away and spilled it.

"It's not nice," she said. So he put it down.

"I want to see Deborah," she resumed.

"My dear, they are at Heartburg. I told you so this morning. They will be home, no doubt, by the next train. Jan has sent to them."

"What should they do at Heartburg?" she fractiously asked.

"They went over yesterday to remain until to-day, I hear."

Subsiding into silence, she lay quite still, save for her panting breath, holding Lionel's hand as he bent over her. Some noise in the corridor outside attracted her attention, and she signed to him to open the door.

"Perhaps it is Dr. Hayes," she murmured. "He is better than Jan."

Better than Jan, insomuch as that he was rather given to assure his patients they would soon be strong enough to enjoy the al fresco delights of a gipsy party, even though he knew that they had not an hour's prolonged life left in them. Not so Jan. Never did a more cheering doctor enter a sick-room than Jan, so long as there was the faintest shade of hope. But, when the closing scene was actually come, the spirit all but upon the wing, then Jan whispered of hope no more. He could not do it in his pure sincerity. Jan could be silent; but Jan could not tell a man, whose soul was hovering on the threshold of the next world, that he might yet recreate himself dancing hornpipes in this. Dr. Hayes would; it was in his creed to do so; and in that respect Dr. Hayes was different from Jan.

It was not Dr. Hayes. As Lionel opened the door, Lucy was passing it, and Therese was at the end of the corridor talking to Lady Verner. Lucy stopped to make her kind inquiries, her tone a low one, of how the invalid was then.

"Whose voice is that?" called out Mrs. Verner, her words scarcely reaching her husband's ears.

"It is Lucy Tempest's," he said, closing the door, and returning to her. "She was asking after you."

"Tell her to come in."

Lionel opened the door again, and beckoned to Lucy. "Mrs. Verner is asking if you will come in and see her," he said, as she approached.

All the old grievances, the insults of Sibylla, blotted out from her gentle and forgiving mind, lost sight of in this great crisis, Lucy went up to the couch, and stood by the side of Sibylla. Lionel leaned over its back.

"I trust you are not feeling very ill, Mrs. Verner," she said in a low, sweet tone as she bent towards her and touched her hand. Touched it only; let her own fall lightly upon it; as if she did not feel sufficiently sure of Sibylla's humour to presume to take it.

"No, I don't think I'm better. I am so weak here."

She touched her chest as she spoke. Lucy, perhaps somewhat at a loss what to say, stood in silence.

"I have been very cross to you sometimes, Lucy," she resumed. "I meant nothing. I used to feel vexed with everybody, and said foolish things without meaning it. It was so cruel to be turned from Verner's Pride, and it made me unhappy."

"Indeed I do not think anything about it," replied Lucy, the tears rising to her eyes in her forgiving tenderness. "I know how ill you must have felt. I used to feel that I should like to help you to bear the pain and the sorrow."

Sibylla lay panting. Lucy remained as she was; Lionel also. Presently she, Sibylla, glanced at Lucy.

"I wish you'd kiss me."

Lucy, unnerved by the words, bent closer to her, a shower of tears falling from her eyes on Sibylla's face.

"If I could but save her life for you!" she murmured to Lionel, glancing up at him through her tears as she rose from the embrace. And she saw that Lionel's eyes were as wet as hers.

And now there was a commotion outside. Sounds, as of talking and wailing and crying, were heard. Little need to tell Lionel that they came from the Misses West; he recognised the voices; and Lucy glided forward to open the door.

Poor ladies! They were wont to say ever after that their absence had happened on purpose. Mortified at being ignored in Miss Hautley's invitations, they had made a little plan to get out of Deerham. An old friend in Heartburg had repeatedly pressed them to dine there and remain for the night, and they determined to avail themselves of the invitation this very day of the fete at Deerham Hall. It would be pleasant to have to say to inquisitive friends, "We could not attend it; we were engaged to Heartburg." Many a lady, of more account in the world than Deborah or Amilly West, has resorted to a less innocent ruse to conceal an offered slight. Jan had despatched Master Cheese by the new railway that morning with the information of Sibylla's illness; and here they were back again, full of grief, of consternation, and ready to show it in their demonstrative way.

Lionel hastened out to them, a Hush—sh! upon his tongue. He caught hold of them as they were hastening in.

"Yes; but not like this. Be still, for her sake."

Deborah looked at his pale face, reading it aright. "Is she so ill as tha'?" she gasped. "Is there no hope?"

He only shook his head. "Whatever you do, preserve a calm demeanour before her. We must keep her in tranquillity."

"Master Cheese says she went to the ball—and danced," said Deborah. "Mr. Verner, how could you allow it?"

"She did go," he answered. "It was no fault of mine."

Heavier footsteps up the stairs now. They were those of the physician, who had come by the train which had brought the Misses West. He, Dr. Hayes, entered the room, and they stole in after him; Lionel followed; Jan came bursting in, and made another; and Lucy remained outside.

Lady Verner saw Dr. Hayes when he was going away.

"There was no change," he said, in answer to her inquiries. "Mrs. Verner was certainly in a very weak, sick state, and—there was no change."

The Misses West removed their travelling garments, and took up their stations in the sick-room—not to leave it again, until the life should have departed from Sibylla. Lionel remained in it. Decima and Catherine went in and out, and Jan made frequent visits to the house.

"Tell papa it is the leaving Verner's Pride that has killed me," said Sibylla to Amilly with nearly her latest breath.

There was no bed for any of them that night, any more than there had been the previous one. A life was hovering in the balance. Lucy sat with Lady Verner, and the rest went in to them occasionally, taking news. Dawn was breaking when one went in for the last time.

It was Jan. He had come to break the tidings to his mother, and he sat himself down on the arm of the sofa—Jan fashion—while he did it.

The flickering lamp of life had burned out at last.



CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

ACHING HEARTS.

If there be one day in the whole year more gladdening to the heart than all others, it is surely the first day of early spring. It may come and give us a glimpse almost in mid-winter; it may not come until winter ought to have been long past: but, appear when it will, it brings rejoicing with it. How many a heart, sinking under its bitter burden of care, is reawakened to hope by that first spring day of brightness! It seems to promise that there shall be yet a change in the dreary lot; it whispers that trouble may not last: that sickness may be superseded by health; that this dark wintry world will be followed by heaven.

Such a day was smiling over Deerham. And they were only in the first days of February. The sun was warm, the fields were green, the sky was blue; all Nature seemed to have put on her brightness. As Mrs. Duff stood at her door and exchanged greetings with sundry gossips passing by—an unusual number of whom were abroad—she gave it as her opinion that the charming weather had been vouchsafed as a special favour to Miss Decima Verner; for it was the wedding-day of that young lady and Sir Edmund Hautley.

Sir Edmund would fain have been married immediately after his return. Perhaps Decima would also. But Lady Verner, always given to study the proprieties of life, considered that it would be more seemly to allow first a few months to roll on after the death of her son's wife. So the autumn and part of the winter were allowed to go by; and in this, the first week of February, they were united; being favoured with weather that might have cheated them into a belief that it was May-day.

How anxious Deerham was to get a sight of her, as the carriages conveying the party to church drove to and fro! Lionel gave her away, and her bride's-maids were Lady Mary Elmsley and Lucy Tempest. The story of the long engagement between her and Edmund Hautley had electrified Deerham; and some began to wish that they had not called her an old maid quite so prematurely. Should it unfortunately have reached her ears, it might tend to place them in the black books of the future Lady Hautley. Lady Verner was rather against Jan's going to church. Lady Verner's private opinion was—indeed it may be said her proclaimed opinion as well as her private one—that Jan would be no ornament to a wedding party. But Decima had already got Jan's promise to be present, which Jan had given conditionally—that no patients required him at the time. But Jan's patients proved themselves considerate that day; and Jan appeared not only at the church, but at the breakfast.

At the dinner, also, in the evening. Sir Edmund and Lady Hautley had left then; but those who remained of course wanted some dinner; and had it. It was a small party, more social than formal: Mr. and Mrs. Bitterworth, Lord Garle and his sister, Miss Hautley and John Massingbird. Miss Hautley was again staying temporarily at Deerham Hall, but she would leave it on the following day. John Massingbird was invited at the special request of Lionel. Perhaps John was less of an ornament to a social party than even Jan, but Lionel had been anxious that no slight should be placed upon him. It would have been a slight for the owner of Verner's Pride to be left out at Decima Verner's wedding. Lady Verner held out a little while; she did not like John Massingbird: never had liked any of the Massingbirds; but Lionel carried his point. John Massingbird showed himself presentable that day, and had left his pipe at home.

In one point Mr. Massingbird proved himself as little given to ceremony as Jan could be. The dinner hour, he had been told, was seven o'clock; and he arrived shortly after six. Lucy Tempest and Mary Elmsley were in the drawing-room. Fair, graceful girls, both of them, in their floating white bride's-maid's robes, which they would wear for the day; Lucy always serene and quiet; Mary, merry-hearted, gay-natured. Mary was to stay with them for some days. They looked somewhat scared at the early entrance of John Massingbird. Curious tales had gone about Deerham of John's wild habits at Verner's Pride, and, it may be, they felt half afraid of him. Lucy whispered to the servant to find Mr. Verner and tell him. Lady Verner had gone to her room to make ready for dinner.

"I say, young ladies, is it six or seven o'clock that we are to dine?" he began. "I could not remember."

"Seven," replied Lucy.

"I am too soon by an hour, then," returned he, sitting down in front of the fire. "How are you by this time, Lionel?"

Lionel shook hands with him as he came in. "Never mind; we are glad to see you," he said in answer to a half apology from John Massingbird about the arriving early. "I can show you those calculations now, if you like."

"Calculations be hanged!" returned John. "When a fellow comes out to dinner, he does not want to be met with 'calculations.' What else, Lionel?"

Lionel Verner laughed. They were certain calculations drawn out by himself, connected with unavoidable work to be commenced on the Verner's Pride estate. For the last month he had been vainly seeking an opportunity of going over them with John Massingbird; that gentleman, who hated details as much as Master Cheese hated work, continually contrived to put it off.

"Have you given yourself the pleasure of making them out in duplicate, that you propose to show them here?" asked he, some irony in his tone. "I thought they were in the study at Verner's Pride."

"I brought them home a day or two ago," replied Lionel. "Some alteration was required, and I thought I would do it quietly here."

"You are a rare—I suppose if I say 'steward' I shall offend your pride, Lionel? 'Bailiff' would be worse. If real stewards were as faithful and indefatigable as you, landlords might get on better than they do. You can't think how he plagues me with his business details, Miss Tempest."

"I can," said Lady Mary freely. "I think he is terribly conscientious."

"All the more so, that he is not going to be a steward long," answered Lionel in a tone through which ran a serious meaning, light as it was. "The time is approaching when I shall render up an account of my stewardship, so far as Verner's Pride is concerned."

"What do you mean by that?" cried John Massingbird.

"I'll tell you to-morrow," answered Lionel.

"I'd like to know now, if it's all the same to you, sir," was John's answer. "You are not going to give up the management of Verner's Pride?"

"Yes, I am," replied Lionel. "I should have resigned it when my wife died, but that—that—Decima wished me to remain in Deerham until her marriage," he concluded after some perceptible hesitation.

"What has Deerham done to you that you want to quit it?" asked John Massingbird.

"I would have left Deerham years ago, had it been practicable," was the remark of Lionel.

"I ask you why?"

"Why? Do you think Deerham and its reminiscences can be so pleasant to me that I should care to stop in it, unless compelled?"

"Bother reminiscences!" rejoined Mr. Massingbird. "I conclude you make believe to allude to the ups and downs you have had in regard to Verner's Pride. That's not the cause, Lionel Verner—if you do want to go away. You have had time to get over that. Perhaps some lady is in the way? Some cross-grained disappointment in that line? Have you been refusing to marry him, Lady Mary?"

Lady Mary threw her laughing blue eyes full in the face of the questioner. "He never asked me, Mr. Massingbird."

"No!" said John.

"No," said she, the lips laughing now, as well as the eyes. "In the old days—I declare I don't mind letting out the secret—in the old days before he was married at all, mamma and Lady Verner contrived to let me know, by indirect hints, that Lionel Verner might be expected to—to—solicit the honour of my becoming his wife. How I laughed behind their backs! It would have been time enough to turn rebellious when the offer came—which I was quite sure never would come—to make them and him a low curtsy, and say, 'You are very kind, but I must decline the honour.' Did you get any teasings on your side, Lionel?" asked she frankly.

A half smile flitted over Lionel's lips. He did not speak.

"No," added Lady Mary, her joking tone turning to seriousness, her blue eyes to earnestness, "I and Lionel have ever been good friends, fond of each other, I believe, in a sober kind of way: but—any closer relationship, we should both have run apart from, as wide as the two poles. I can answer for myself; and I think I can for him."

"I see," said John Massingbird. "To be husband and wife would go against the grain: you'd rather be brother and sister."

What there could be in the remark to disturb the perfect equanimity of Mary Elmsley, she best knew. Certain it was that her face turned of a fiery red, and it seemed that she did not know where to look. She spoke rapid words, as if to cover her confusion.

"So you perceive, Mr. Massingbird, that I have nothing to do with Mr. Verner's plans and projects; with his stopping at Deerham or going away from it. I should not think any lady has. You are not going, are you?" she asked turning to Lionel.

"Yes, I shall go, Mary," he answered. "As soon as Mr. Massingbird can find somebody to replace me——-"

"Mr. Massingbird's not going to find anybody to replace you," burst forth John. "I declare, Lionel, if you do go, I'll take on Roy, just to spite you and your old tenants. By the way, though, talking of Roy, who do you think has come back to Deerham?" he broke off, rather less vehemently.

"How can I guess?" asked Lionel. "Some of the Mormons, perhaps."

"No. Luke Roy. He has arrived this afternoon."

"Has he indeed?" replied Lionel, a shade of sadness in his tone, more than surprise, for somehow the name of Luke, coupled with his return, brought back all too vividly the recollection of his departure, and the tragic end of Rachel Frost which had followed so close upon it.

"I have not seen him," rejoined Mr. Massingbird. "I met Mrs. Roy as I came on here, and she told me. She was scuttering along with some muffins in her hand—to regale him on, I suppose."

"How glad she must be!" exclaimed Lucy.

"Rather sorry, I thought," returned John. "She looked very quaky and shivery. I tell you what, Lionel," he continued, turning to him, "your dinner will not be ready this three-quarters of an hour yet. I'll just go as far as old Roy's, and have a word with Luke. I have got a top-coat in the hall."

He went out without ceremony. Lionel walked with him to the door. It was a fine, starlight evening. When he, Lionel, returned, Lucy was alone. Mary Elmsley had left the room.

Lucy had quitted the chair of state she had been sitting in, and was in her favourite place on a low stool on the hearth-rug. She was more kneeling than sitting. The fire-light played on her sweet face, so young and girlish still in its outlines, on her pretty hands clasped on her knees, on her arms which glittered with pearls, on the pearls that rested on her neck. Lionel stood on the other side of the hearth-rug, leaning, as usual, on the mantel-piece.

At least five minutes passed in silence. And then Lucy raised her eyes to his.

"Was it a joke, what you said to John Massingbird—about leaving Deerham?"

"It was sober earnest, Lucy. I shall go as soon as I possibly can now."

"But why?" she presently asked.

"I should have left, as you heard me say, after Mrs. Verner's death, but for one or two considerations. Decima very much wished me to remain until her marriage; and—I did not see my way particularly clear to embark in a new course of life. I do not see it yet."

"Why should you go?" asked Lucy.

"Because I—because it is expedient that I should, for many reasons," he answered.

"You do not like to remain subservient to John Massingbird?"

"It is not that. I have got over that. My prospects have been so utterly blighted, Lucy, that I think some of the old pride of the Verner race has gone out of me. I do not see a chance of getting anything to do half as good as this stewardship—as he but now called it—under John Massingbird. But I shall try at it."

"What shall you try, do you think?"

"I cannot tell. I should like to get something abroad; I should like to go to India. I do not suppose I have any real chance of getting an appointment there; but stopping in Deerham will certainly not bring it to me: that, or anything else."

Lucy's lips had parted. "You will not think of going to India now!" she breathlessly exclaimed.

"Indeed I do think of it, Lucy."

"So far off as that!"

The words were uttered with a strange sound of pain. Lionel passed his hand over his brow, the action betokening pain quite as great as Lucy's tone. Lucy rose from her seat and stood near him, her thoughtful face upturned.

"What is left for me in England?" he resumed. "What am I here? A man without home, fortune, hope. I have worse than no prospects. The ceremony at which we have been assisting this day seems to have brought the bare facts more palpably before me in all their naked truth. Other men can have a home, can form social ties to bless it. I cannot."

"But why?" asked Lucy, her lips trembling.

"Why! Can you ask it, Lucy? There are moments—and they are all too frequent—when a fond vision comes over me of what my future might be; of the new ties I might form, and find the happiness in, that—that I did not find in the last. The vision, I say, comes all too frequently for my peace of mind, when I realise the fact that it can never be realised."

Lucy stood, her hands tightly clasped before her, a world of sadness in her fair, young face. One less entirely single-hearted, less true than Lucy Tempest, might have professed to ignore the drift of his words. Had Lucy, since Mrs. Verner's death, cast a thought to the possibility of certain happy relations arising between her and Lionel—those social ties he now spoke of? No, not intentionally. If any such dreams did lurk in her heart unbidden, there she let them lie, in entire abeyance. Lionel Verner had never spoken a word to her, or dropped a hint that he contemplated such; his intercourse with her had been free and open, just as it was with Decima. She was quite content; to be with him, to see him daily, was enough of happiness for her, without looking to the future.

"The farther I get away from England the better," he resumed. "India, from old associations, naturally suggests itself, but I care not whither I go. You threw out a suggestion once, Lucy, that Colonel Tempest might be able to help me to something there, by which I may get a living. Should I have found no success in London by the time he arrives, it is my intention to ask him the favour. He will be home in a few weeks now."

"And you talk of leaving Deerham immediately!" cried Lucy. "Where's the necessity? You should wait until he comes."

"I have waited too long, as it is. Deerham will be glad to get rid of me. It may hold a jubilee the day it hears I have shipped myself off for India. I wonder if I shall ever come back? Probably not. I and old friends may never meet again on this side heaven."

He had been affecting to speak lightly, jokingly, toying at the same time with some trifle on the mantel-piece. But as he turned his eyes on Lucy at the conclusion of his sentence, he saw that the tears were falling on her cheeks. The words, the ideas they conjured up, had jarred painfully on every fibre of her heart. Lionel's light mood was gone.

"Lucy," he whispered, bending to her, his tone changing to one of passionate earnestness, "I dare not stay here longer. There are moments when I am tempted to forget my position, to forget honour, and speak words that—that—I ought not to speak. Even now, as I look down upon you, my heart is throbbing, my veins are tingling; but I must not touch you with my finger, or tell you of my impassioned love. All I can do is to carry it away with me, and battle with it alone."

Her face had grown white with emotion. She raised her wet eyes yearningly to his; but she still spoke the simple truth, unvarnished, the great agony that was lying at her heart.

"How shall I live on, with you away? It will be more lonely than I can bear."

"Don't, child!" he said in a wailing tone of entreaty. "The temptation from my own heart is all too present to me. Don't you tempt me. Strong man though I am, there are things that I cannot bear."

He leaned on the mantel-piece, shading his face with his hand. Lucy stood in silence, striving to suppress her emotion from breaking forth.

"In the old days—very long ago, they seem now, to look back upon—I had the opportunity of assuring my life's happiness," he continued in a low, steady tone. "I did not do it; I let it slip from me, foolishly, wilfully; of my now free act. But, Lucy—believe me or not as you like—I loved the one I rejected, more than the one I took. Before the sound of my marriage bells had yet rung out on my ears, the terrible conviction was within me that I loved that other better than all created things. You may judge, then, what my punishment has been."

She raised her eyes to his face, but he did not see them, did not look at her. He continued—

"It was the one great mistake of my life; made by myself alone. I cannot plead the excuse which so many are able to plead for life's mistakes—that I was drawn into it. I made it deliberately, as may be said; of my own will. It is but just, therefore, that I should expiate it. How I have suffered in the expiation, Heaven alone knows. It is true that I bound myself in a moment of delirium, of passion; giving myself no time for thought. But I have never looked upon that fact as an excuse; for a man who has come to the years I had should hold his feelings under his own control. Yes; I missed that opportunity, and the chance went by for life."

"For life?" repeated Lucy, with streaming eyes. It was too terribly real a moment for any attempt at concealment. A little reticence, in her maiden modesty; but of concealment, none.

"I am a poor man now, Lucy," he explained; "worse than without prospects, if you knew all. And I do not know why you should not know all," he added after a pause: "I am in debt. Such a man cannot marry."

The words were spoken quietly, temperately; their tone proving how hopeless could be any appeal against them, whether from him, from her, or from without. It was perfectly true: Lionel Verner's position placed him beyond the reach of social ties.

Little more was said. It was a topic which Lucy could not urge or gainsay; and Lionel did not see fit to continue it. He may have felt that it was dangerous ground, even for the man of honour that he strove to be. He held out his hand to Lucy.

"Will you forgive me?" he softly whispered.

Her sobs choked her. She strove to speak, as she crept closer to him, and put out her hands in answer; but the words would not come. She lifted her face to glance at his.

"Not a night passes but I pray God to forgive me," he whispered, his voice trembling with emotion, as he pressed her hands between his, "to forgive the sorrow I have brought upon you. Oh, Lucy! forgive—forgive me!"

"Yes, yes," was all her answer, her sobs impeding her utterance, her tears blinding her. Lionel kept the hands strained to him; he looked down on the upturned face, and read its love there; he kept his own bent, with its mingled expression of tenderness and pain; but he did not take from it a single caress. What right had he? Verily, if he had not shown control over himself once in his life, he was showing it now.

He released one of his hands and laid it gently upon her head for a minute, his lips moving silently. Then he let her go. It was over.

She sat down on the low stool again on the opposite side the hearth, and buried her face and her anguish. Lionel buried his face, his elbow on the mantel-piece, his hand uplifted. He never looked at her again, or spoke; she never raised her head; and when the company began to arrive, and came in, the silence was still unbroken.

And, as they talked and laughed that night, fulfilling the usages of society amidst the guests, how little did any one present suspect the scene which had taken place but a short while before! How many of the smiling faces we meet in society cover aching hearts!



CHAPTER LXXXIX.

MASTER CHEESE BLOWN UP.

There were other houses in Deerham that night, not quite so full of sociability as was Lady Verner's. For one, may be instanced that of the Misses West. They sat at the table in the general sitting-room, hard at work, a lamp between them, for the gas-burners above were high for sewing, and their eyes were no longer so keen as they had been. Miss Deborah was "turning" a table-cloth; Miss Amilly was darning sundry holes in a pillow-case. Their stock of household linen was in great need of being replaced by new; but, not having the requisite money to spare, they were doing their best to renovate the old.

A slight—they could not help feeling it as such—had been put upon them that day, in not having been invited to Decima Verner's wedding. The sisters-in-law of Lionel Verner, connected closely with Jan, they had expected the invitation. But it had not come. Lionel had pressed his mother to give it; Jan, in his straightforward way, when he had found it was not forthcoming, said, "Why don't you invite them! They'd do nobody any harm." Lady Verner, however had positively declined: the Wests had never been acquaintances of hers, she said. They felt the slight, poor ladies, but they felt it quite humbly and meekly; not complaining; not venturing even to say to each other that they might have been asked. They only sat a little more silent than usual over their work that evening, doing more, and talking less.

The servant came in with the supper-tray, and laid it on the table. "Is the cold pork to come in?" asked she. "I have not brought it. I thought, perhaps, you'd not care to have it in to-night, ma'am, as Mr. Jan's out."

Miss Deborah cast her eyes on the tray. There was a handsome piece of cheese, and a large glass of fresh celery. A rapid calculation passed through her mind that the cold pork, if not cut for supper, would make a dinner the following day, with an apple or a jam pudding.

"No, Martha, this will do for to-night," she answered. "Call Master Cheese, and then draw the ale."

"It's a wonder he waits to be called," was Martha's comment, as she went out. "He is generally in afore the tray, whatever the meals may be, he is."

She went out at the side door, and entered the surgery. Nobody was in it except the surgery-boy. The boy was asleep, with his head and arms on the counter, and the gas flared away over him. A hissing and fizzing from Jan's room, similar to the sounds Lucy Tempest heard when she invaded the surgery the night of the ball at Deerham Hall, saluted Martha's ears. She went round the counter, tried the door, found it fastened, and shook the handle.

"Who's there?" called out Master Cheese from the other side.

"It's me," said Martha "Supper's ready."

"Very well. I'll be in directly," responded Master Cheese.

"I say!" called out Martha wrathfully, rattling the handle again, "if you are making a mess of that room, as you do sometimes, I won't have it. I'll complain to Mr. Jan. There! Messing the floor and places with your powder and stuff! It would take two servants to clear up after you."

"You go to Bath," was the satisfactory recommendation of Master Cheese.

Martha called out another wrathful warning, and withdrew. Master Cheese came forth, locked the door, took out the key, went indoors, and sat down to supper.

Sat down in angry consternation. He threw his eager glances to every point of the table, and could not see upon it what he was longing to see—what he had been expecting all the evening to see—for the terrible event of its not being there had never so much as crossed his imagination. The dinner had consisted of a loin of pork with the crackling on, and apple sauce—a dish so beloved by Master Cheese, that he never thought of it without a watering of the mouth. It had been nothing like half eaten at dinner, neither the pork nor the sauce. Jan was at the wedding-breakfast, and the Misses West, in Master Cheese's estimation, ate like two sparrows: of course he had looked to be regaled with it at supper. Miss West cut him a large piece of cheese, and Miss Amilly handed him the glass of celery.

Now Master Cheese had no great liking for that vulgar edible which bore his name, and which used to form the staple of so many good, old-fashioned suppers. To cheese, in the abstract, he could certainly have borne no forcible objection, since he was wont to steal into the larder, between breakfast and dinner, and help himself—as Martha would grumblingly complain—to "pounds" of it. The state of the case was just this: the young gentleman liked cheese well enough when he could get nothing better. Cheese, however, as a substitute for cold loin of pork, with "crackling" and apple sauce, was hardly to be borne, and Master Cheese sat in dumbfounded dismay, heaving great sighs and casting his eyes upon his plate.

"I feel quite faint," said he.

"What makes you feel faint?" asked Miss Deb.

"Well, I suppose it is for want of my supper," he returned. "Is—is there no meat to-night, Miss Deb?"

"Not any," she answered decisively. She had the pleasure of knowing Master Cheese well.

Master Cheese paused. "There was nearly the whole joint left at dinner," said he in a tone of remonstrance.

"There was a good deal of it left, and that's the reason it's not coming in," replied Miss Deb. "It will be sufficient for to-morrow's dinner with a pudding, I'm sure it will not hurt you to sup upon cheese for one night."

With all his propensity for bonne chere, Master Cheese was really of a modest nature, and would not go the length of demanding luxuries, if denied them by Miss Deb. He was fain to content himself with the cheese and celery, eating so much of it that it may be a question whether the withholding of the cold pork had been a gain in point of economy.

Laying down his knife at length, he put back his chair to return to the surgery. Generally he was not in so much haste; he liked to wait until the things were removed, even to the cloth, lest by a speedy departure he might miss some nice little dainty or other, coming in at the tail of the repast. It is true such impromptu arrivals were not common at Miss West's table, but Master Cheese liked to be on the sure side.

"You are in a hurry," remarked Miss Amilly, surprised at the unwonted withdrawal.

"Jan's out," returned Master Cheese. "Folks may be coming in to the surgery."

"I wonder if Mr. Jan will be late to-night?" cried Miss Deb.

"Of course he will," confidently replied Master Cheese. "Who ever heard of a wedding-party breaking up before morning?"

For this reason, probably, Master Cheese returned to the surgery, prepared to "make a night of it"—not altogether in the general acceptation of that term, but at his chemical experiments. It was most rare that he could make sure of Jan's absence for any length of time. When abroad in pursuance of his professional duties, Jan might be returning at any period; in five minutes or in five hours; there was no knowing; and Master Cheese dared not get his chemical apparatus about, in the uncertainty, Jan having so positively forbidden his recreations in the science. For this night, however, he thought he was safe. Master Cheese's ideas of a wedding festival consisted of unlimited feasting. He could not have left such a board, if bidden to one, until morning light, and he judged others by himself.

Jan's bedroom was strewed with vessels of various sorts and sizes from one end of it to the other. In the old days, Dr. West had been a considerable dabbler in experimental chemistry himself. Jan also understood something of it. Master Cheese did not see why he should not. A roaring fire burned in Jan's grate, and the young gentleman stood before it for a few minutes, previous to resuming his researches, giving his back a roast, and indulging bitter reminiscences touching his deficient supper.

"She's getting downright mean, is that old Deb!" grumbled he; "especially if Jan happens to be out. Wasn't it different in West's time! He knew what was good, he did. Catch her daring to put bread and cheese on the table for supper then. I shall be quite exhausted before the night's over. Bob!"

Bob, his head still on the counter, partially woke up at the call—sufficiently so to return a half sound by way of response.

"Bob!" roared Master Cheese again. "Can't you hear?"

Bob, his eyes blinking and winking, came in, in answer: that is, as far as he could get in, for the litter lying about.

"Bring in the jar of tamarinds."

"The jar of tamarinds!" repeated Bob. "In here?"

"Yes, in here," said Master Cheese. "Now, you needn't stare. All you have got to do is to obey orders."

Bob disappeared, and presently returned, lugging in a big porcelain jar. He was ordered to "take out the bung, and leave it open." He did so, setting it in a convenient place on the floor, near Master Cheese, and giving his opinion gratuitously of the condition of the room. "Won't there be a row when Mr. Jan comes in and finds it like this!"



"The things will be put away long before he comes," responded Master Cheese. "Mind your own business. And, look here! if anybody comes bothering, Mr. Jan's out, and Mr. Cheese is out, and they can't be seen till the morning—unless it's some desperate case," added Master Cheese, somewhat qualifying the instructions—"a fellow dying, or anything of that."

Bob withdrew, to fall asleep in the surgery as before, his head and arms on the counter; and Master Cheese recommenced his studies. Solacing himself first of all with a few mouthfuls of tamarinds, as he intended to do at intervals throughout his labours, he plunged his hands into a mass of incongruous substances—nitre, chlorate of potass, and sulphur being amongst them.

The Misses West, meanwhile, had resumed their work after supper, and they sewed until the clock struck ten. Then they put it away, and drew round the fire for a chat, their feet on the fender. A very short while, and they were surprised by the entrance of Jan.

"My goodness!" exclaimed Miss Amilly. "It's never you yet, Mr. Jan!"

"Why shouldn't it be?" returned Jan, drawing forward a chair, and sitting down by them. "Did you fancy I was going to sleep there?"

"Master Cheese thought you would keep it up until morning."

"Oh! did he? Is he gone to bed?"

"He is in the surgery," replied Miss Amilly. "Mr. Jan, you have told us nothing yet about the wedding in the morning."

"It went off," answered Jan.

"But the details? How did the ladies look?"

"They looked as usual, for all I saw," replied Jan.

"What did they wear?"

"Wear? Gowns, I suppose."

"Oh, Mr. Jan! Surely you saw better than that! Can't you tell what sort of gowns?"

Jan really could not. It may be questioned whether he could have told a petticoat from a gown. Miss Amilly was waiting with breathless interest, her lips apart.

"Some were in white, and some were in colours, I think," hazarded Jan, trying to be correct in his good nature. "Decima was in a veil."

"Of course she was," acquiesced Miss Amilly with emphasis. "Did the bridemaids—"

What pertinent question relating to the bridemaids Miss Amilly was about to put, never was known. A fearful sound interrupted it. A sound nearly impossible to describe. Was it a crash of thunder? Had an engine from the distant railway taken up its station outside their house, and gone off with a bang? Or had the surgery blown up? The room they were in shook, the windows rattled, the Misses West screamed with real terror, and Jan started from his seat.

"It can't be an explosion of gas!" he muttered.

Bursting out of the room, he nearly knocked down Martha, who was bursting into it. Instinct, or perhaps sound, took Jan to the surgery, and they all followed in his wake. Bob, the image of terrified consternation, stood in the midst of a debris of glass, his mouth open, and his hair standing-upright. The glass bottles and jars of the establishment had flown from their shelves, causing the unhappy Bob to believe that the world had come to an end.

But what was the debris there, compared to the debris in the next room, Jan's! The window was out, the furniture was split, the various chemical apparatus had been shivered into a hundred pieces, the tamarind jar was in two, and Master Cheese was extended on the floor on his back, his hands scorched, his eyebrows singed off, his face black, and the end of his nose burning.

"Oh! that's it, is it?" said Jan, when his eyes took in the state of things. "I knew it would come to it."

"He have been and blowed hisself up," remarked Bob, who had stolen in after them.

"Is it the gas?" sobbed Miss Amilly, hardly able to speak for terror.

"No, it's not the gas," returned Jan, examining the debris more closely. "It's one of that gentleman's chemical experiments."

Deborah West was bending over the prostrate form in alarm. "He surely can't be dead!" she shivered.

"Not he," said Jan. "Come, get up," he added, taking Master Cheese by the arm to assist him.

He was placed in a chair, and there he sat, coming to, and emitting dismal groans.

"I told you what you'd bring it to, if you persisted in attempting experiments that you know nothing about," was Jan's reprimand, delivered in a sharp tone. "A pretty state of things this is!"

Master Cheese groaned again.

"Are you much hurt?" asked Miss Deb in a sympathising accent.

"Oh-o-o-o-o-o-h!" moaned Master Cheese.

"Is there anything we can get for you?" resumed Miss Deb.

"Oh-o-o-o-o-o-h!" repeated Master Cheese. "A glass of wine might revive me."

"Get up," said Jan, "and let's see if you can walk. He's not hurt, Miss Deb."

Master Cheese, yielding to the peremptory movement of Jan's arm, had no resource but to show them that he could walk. He had taken a step or two as dolefully as it was possible for him to take it, keeping his eyes shut, and stretching out his hands before him, after the manner of the blind, when an interruption came from Miss Amilly.

"What can this be, lying here?"

She was bending her head near the old bureau, which had been rent in the explosion, her eyes fixed upon some large letter or paper on the floor. They crowded round at the words. Jan picked it up, and found it to be a folded parchment bearing a great seal.

"Hollo!" exclaimed Jan.

On the outside was written "Codicil to the will of Stephen Verner."

"What is it?" exclaimed Miss Deborah, and even Master Cheese contrived to get his eyes open to look.

"It is the lost codicil," replied Jan. "It must have been in that bureau. How did it get there?"

How indeed? There ensued a pause.

"It must have been placed there"—Jan was beginning, and then he stopped himself. He would not, before those ladies, say—"by Dr. West."

But to Jan it was now perfectly clear. That old hunting for the "prescription," which had puzzled him at the time, was explained now. There was the "prescription"—the codicil! Dr. West had had it in his hand when disturbed in that room by a stranger: he had flung it back in the bureau in his hurry; pushed it back: and by some unexplainable means, he must have pushed it too far out of sight. And there it had lain until now, intact and undiscovered.

The hearts of the Misses West were turning to sickness, their countenances to pallor. That it could be no other than their father who had stolen the codicil from Stephen Verner's dying chamber, was present to their conviction. His motive could only have been to prevent Verner's Pride passing to Lionel, over his daughter and her husband. What did he think of his work when the news came of Frederick's death? What did he think of it when John Massingbird returned in person? What did he think of it when he read Sibylla's dying message, written to him by Amilly—"Tell papa it is the leaving Verner's Pride that has killed me?"

"I shall take possession of this," said Jan Verner. Master Cheese was conveyed to the house and consigned to bed, where his burnings were dressed by Jan, and restoratives administered to him, including the glass of wine.

The first thing on the following morning the codicil was handed over to Mr. Matiss. He immediately recognised it by its appearance. But it would be opened officially later, in the presence of John Massingbird. Jan betook himself to Verner's Pride to carry the news, and found Mr. Massingbird astride on a pillar of the terrace steps, smoking away with gusto. The day was warm and sunshiny as the previous one had been.

"What, is it you?" cried he, when Jan came in sight. "You are up here betimes. Anybody dying, this way?"

"Not this morning," replied Jan. "I say, Massingbird, there's ill news in the wind for you."

"What's that?" composedly asked John, tilting some ashes out of his pipe.

"That codicil has come to light."

John puffed on vigorously, staring at Jan, but never speaking.

"The thief must have been old West," went on Jan. "Only think! it has been hidden all this while in that bureau of his, in my bedroom."

"What has unhidden it?" demanded Mr. Massingbird in a half-satirical tone, as if he doubted the truth of the information.

"An explosion did that. Cheese got meddling with dangerous substances, and there was a blow-up. The bureau was thrown down and broken, and the codicil was dislodged. To talk of it, it sounds like an old stage trick."

"Did Cheese blow himself up?" asked John Massingbird.

"Yes. But he came down again. He is in bed with burned hands and a scorched face. If I had told him once to let that dangerous play alone—dangerous in his hands—I had told him ten times."

"Where's the codicil?" inquired Mr. Massingbird, smoking away.

"In Matiss's charge. You'd like to be present, I suppose, at the time of its being opened?"

"I can take your word," returned John Massingbird. "This does not surprise me. I have always had an impression that the codicil would turn up."

"It is more than I have had," dissented Jan.

As if by common consent, they spoke no further on the subject of the abstraction and its guilty instrument. It was a pleasant theme to neither. John Massingbird, little refinement of feeling that he possessed, could not forget that Dr. West was his mother's brother; or Jan, that he was his late master, his present partner—that he was connected with him in the eyes of Deerham. Before they had spoken much longer, they were joined by Lionel.

"I shall give you no trouble, old fellow," was John Massingbird's salutation. "You gave me none."

"Thank you," answered Lionel. Though what precise trouble it lay in John Massingbird's power to give him, he did not see, considering that things were now so plain.

"You'll accord me house-room for a bit longer, though, won't you?"

"I will accord it you as long as you like," replied Lionel, in the warmth of his heart.

"You know I would have had you stop on here all along," remarked Mr. Massingbird; "but the bar to it was Sibylla. I am not sorry the thing's found. I am growing tired of my life here. It has come into my mind at times lately to think whether I should not give up to you, Lionel, and be off over the seas again. It's tame work, this, to one who has roughed it at the diggings."

"You'd not have done it," observed Jan, alluding to the giving up.

"Perhaps not," said John Massingbird; "but I have owed a debt to Lionel for a long while. I say, old chap, didn't you think I clapped on a good sum for your trouble when I offered you the management of Verner's Pride?"

"I did," answered Lionel.

"Ay! I was in your debt; am in it still. Careless as I am, I thought of it now and then."

"I do not understand you," said Lionel. "In what way are you in my debt?"

"Let it go for now," returned John. "I may tell you some time, perhaps. When shall you take up your abode here?"

Lionel smiled. "I will not invade you without warning. You and I will take counsel together, John, and discuss plans and expediencies."

"I suppose you'll be for setting about your improvements now?"

"Yes," answered Lionel, his tone changing to one of deep seriousness, not to say reverence. "Without loss of time."

"I told you they could wait until you came into the estate. It has not been long first, you see."

"No; but I never looked for it," said Lionel.

"Ah! Things turn up that we don't look for," concluded John Massingbird, smoking on as serenely as though he had come into an estate, instead of having lost one. "There'll be bonfires all over the place to-night, Lionel—left-handed compliment to me. Here comes Luke Roy. I told him to be here this morning. What nuts this will be for old Roy to crack! He has been fit to stick me, ever since I refused him the management of Verner's Pride."



CHAPTER XC.

LIGHT THROWN ON OBSCURITY.

And so, the trouble and the uncertainty, the ups and the downs, the turnings out and changes were at an end, and Lionel Verner was at rest—at rest so far as rest can be, in this lower world. He was reinstalled at Verner's Pride, its undisputed master; never again to be sent forth from it during life.

He had not done as John Massingbird did—gone right in, the first day, and taken up his place, sans ceremonie, without word and without apology, at the table's head, leaving John to take his at the side or the foot, or where he could. Quite the contrary. Lionel's refinement of mind, his almost sensitive consideration for the feelings of others, clung to him now, as it always had done, as it always would do, and he was chary of disturbing John Massingbird too early in his sway of the internal economy of Verner's Pride. It had to be done, however; and John Massingbird remained on with him, his guest.

All that had passed; and the spring of the year was growing late. The codicil had been proved; the neighbourhood had tendered their congratulations to the new master, come into his own at last; the improvements, in which Lionel's conscience held so deep a score, were begun and in good progress; and John Massingbird's return to Australia was decided upon, and the day of his departure fixed. People surmised that Lionel would be glad to get rid of him, if only for the sake of his drawing-rooms. John Massingbird still lounged at full length on the amber satin couches, in dropping-off slippers or in dirty boots, as the case might be, still filled them with clouds of tobacco-smoke, so that you could not see across them. Mrs. Tynn declared, to as many people as she dared, that she prayed every night on her bended knees for Mr. Massingbird's departure, before the furniture should be quite ruined, or they burned in their beds.

Mr. Massingbird was not going alone. Luke Roy was returning with him. Luke's intention always had been to return to Australia; he had but come home for a short visit to the old place and to see his mother. Luke had been doing well at the gold-fields. He did not dig; but he sold liquor to those who did dig; at which he was making money rapidly. He had a "chum," he said, who managed the store while he was away. So glowing was his account of his prospects, that old Roy had decided upon going also, and trying his fortune there. Mrs. Roy looked aghast at the projected plans; she was too old for it, she urged. But she could not turn her husband. He had never studied her wishes too much, and he was not likely to begin to do so now. So Mrs. Roy, with incessantly-dropping tears, and continued prognostications that the sea-sickness would kill her, was forced to make her preparations for the voyage. Perhaps one motive, more than all else, influenced Roy's decision—the getting out of Deerham. Since his hopes of having something to do with the Verner's Pride estate—as he had in Stephen Verner's time—had been at an end, Roy had gone about in a perpetual state of inward mortification. This emigration would put an end to it; and what with the anticipation of making a fortune at the diggings, and what with his satisfaction at saying adieu to Deerham, and what with the thwarting of his wife, Roy was in a state of complacency.

The time went on to the evening previous to the departure. Lionel and John Massingbird had dined alone, and now sat together at the open window, in the soft May twilight. A small table was at John's elbow; a bottle of rum, and a jar of tobacco, water and a glass being on it, ready to his hand. He had done his best to infect Lionel with a taste for rum-and-water—as a convenient beverage to be taken at any hour from seven o'clock in the morning onwards—but Lionel had been proof against it. John had the rum-drinking to himself, as he had the smoking. Lionel had behaved to him liberally. It was not in Lionel Verner's nature to behave otherwise, no matter to whom. From the moment the codicil was found, John Massingbird had no further right to a single sixpence of the revenues of the estate. He was in the position of one who has nothing. It was Lionel who had found means for all—for his expenses, his voyage; for a purse when he should get to Australia. John Massingbird was thinking of this as he sat now, smoking and taking draughts of the rum-and-water.

"If ever I turn to work with a will and become a hundred-thousand-pound man, old fellow," he suddenly broke out, "I'll pay you back. This, and also what I got rid of while the estate was in my hands."

Lionel, who had been looking from the window in a reverie, turned round and laughed. To imagine John Massingbird becoming a hundred-thousand-pound man through his own industry, was a stretch of fancy marvellously comprehensive.

"I have to make a clean breast of it to-night," resumed John Massingbird, after puffing away for some minutes in silence. "Do you remember my saying to you, the day we heard news of the codicil's being found, that I was in your debt?"

"I remember your saying it," replied Lionel. "I did not understand what you meant. You were not in my debt."

"Yes, I was. I had a score to pay off as big as the moon. It's as big still; for it's one that never can be paid off; never will be."

Lionel looked at him in surprise; his manner was so unusually serious.

"Fifty times, since I came back from Australia, have I been on the point of clearing myself of the secret. But, you see, there was Verner's Pride in the way. You would naturally have said upon hearing it, 'Give the place up to me; you can have no moral right to it.' And I was not prepared to give it up; it seemed too comfortable a nest, just at first, after the knocking about over yonder. Don't you perceive?"

"I don't perceive, and I don't understand," replied Lionel. "You are speaking in an unknown language."

"I'll speak in a known one, then. It was through me that old Ste Verner left Verner's Pride away from you."

"What!" uttered Lionel.

"True," nodded John, with composure. "I told him a—a bit of scandal of you. And the strait-laced old simpleton took and altered his will on the strength of it. I did not know of that until afterwards."

"And the scandal?" asked Lionel quietly. "What may it have been?"

"False scandal," carelessly answered John Massingbird. "But I thought it was true when I spoke it. I told your uncle that it was you who had played false with Rachel Frost."

"Massingbird!"

"Don't fancy I went to him open-mouthed, and said, 'Lionel Verner's the man.' A fellow who could do such a sneaking trick would be only fit for hanging. The avowal to him was surprised from me in an unguarded moment; it slipped out in self-defence. I'd better tell you the tale."

"I think you had," said Lionel.

"You remember the bother there was, the commotion, the night Rachel was drowned. I came home and found Mr. Verner sitting at the inquiry. It never struck me, then, to suspect that it could be any one of us three who had been in the quarrel with Rachel. I knew that I had had no finger in the pie; I had no cause to think that you had; and, as to Fred, I'd as soon have suspected staid old Verner himself; besides, I believed Fred to have eyes only for Sibylla West. Not but that the affair appeared to me unaccountably strange; for, beyond Verner's Pride, I did not think Rachel possessed an acquaintance."

He stopped to take a few whiffs at his pipe, and then resumed, Lionel listening in silence.

"On the following morning by daylight I went down to the pond, the scene of the previous night. A few stragglers were already there. As we were looking about and talking, I saw on the very brink of the pond, partially hidden in the grass—in fact trodden into it, as it seemed to me—a glove. I picked it up, and was on the point of calling out that I had found a glove, when it struck me that the glove was yours. The others had seen me stoop, and one of them asked if I had found anything. I said 'No.' I had crushed the glove in my hand, and presently I transferred it to my pocket."

"Your motive being good-nature to me?" interrupted Lionel.

"To be sure it was. To have shown that as Lionel Verner's glove, would have fixed the affair on your shoulders at once. Why should I tell? I had been in scrapes myself. And I kept it, saying nothing to anybody. I examined the glove privately, saw it was really yours, and, of course, I drew my own conclusions—that it was you who had been in the quarrel, though what cause of dispute you could have with Rachel, I was at a loss to divine. Next came the inquest, and the medical men's revelation at it: and that cleared up the mystery, 'Ho, ho,' I said to myself, 'so Master Lionel can do a bit of courting on his own account, steady as he seems.' I——"

"Did you assume I threw her into the pond?" again interposed Lionel.

"Not a bit of it. What next, Lionel? The ignoring of some of the Commandments comes natural enough to the conscience; but the sixth—one does not ignore that. I believed that you and Rachel might have come to loggerheads, and that she, in a passion, flung herself in. I held the glove still in my pocket; it seemed to be the safest place for it; and I intended, before I left, to hand it over to you, and to give you my word I'd keep counsel. On the night of the inquest, you were closeted in the study with Mr. Verner. I chafed at it, for I wished to be closeted with him myself. Unless I could get off from Verner's Pride the next day, there would be no chance of my sailing in the projected ship—where our passages had been already secured by Luke Roy. By and by you came into the dining-room—do you remember it?—and told me Mr. Verner wanted me in the study. It was just what I wanted; and I went in. I shan't forget my surprise to the last hour of my life. His greeting was an accusation of me—of me! that it was I who had played false with Rachel. He had proof, he said. One of the house-girls had seen one of us three young men coming from the scene that night—and he, Stephen Verner, knew it could only be me. Fred was too cautious, he said; Lionel he could depend upon; and he bitterly declared that he would not give me a penny piece of the promised money, to take me on my way. A pretty state of things, was it not, Lionel, to have one's projects put an end to in that manner? In my dismay and anger, I blurted out the truth; that one of us might have been seen coming from the scene, but it was not myself; it was Lionel; and I took the glove out of my pocket and showed it to him."

John Massingbird paused to take a draught of the rum-and-water, and then resumed.

"I never saw any man so agitated as Mr. Verner. Upon my word, had I foreseen the effect the news would have had upon him, I hardly think I should have told it. His face turned ghastly; he lay back in his chair, uttering groans of despair; in short, it had completely prostrated him. I never knew how deeply he was attached to you, Lionel, until that night."

"He believed the story?" said Lionel.

"Of course he believed it," assented John Massingbird. "I told it him as a certainty, as a thing about which there was no admission for the slightest doubt: I assumed it, myself, to be a certainty. When he was a little recovered, he took possession of the glove, and bound me to secrecy. You would never have forgotten it, Lionel, had you seen his shaking hands, his imploring eyes, heard his voice of despair; all lifted to beseech secrecy for you—for the sake of his dead brother—for the name of Verner—for his own sake. I heartily promised it; and he handed me over a more liberal sum than even I had expected, enjoined me to depart with the morrow's dawn, and bade me Godspeed. I believe he was glad that I was going, lest I might drop some chance word during the present excitement of Deerham, and by that means direct suspicion to you. He need not have feared. I was already abusing myself mentally for having told him, although it had gained me my ends: 'Live and let live' had been my motto hitherto. The interview was nearly over when you came to interrupt it, asking if Mr. Verner would see Robin Frost. Mr. Verner answered that he might come in. He came; you and Fred with him. Do you recollect old Verner's excitement?—his vehement words in answer to Robin's request that a reward should be posted up? 'He'll never be found, Robin; the villain will never be found, so long as you and I and the world shall last.' I recollect them, you see, word for word, to this hour; but none, save myself, knew what caused Mr. Verner's excitement, or that the word 'villain' was applied to you. Upon my word and honour, old boy, I felt as if I had the deeper right to it! and I felt angry with old Verner for looking at the affair in so strong a light. But there was no help for it. I went away the next morning——"

"Stay!" interrupted Lionel. "A single word to me would have set the misapprehension straight. Why did you not speak it?"

"I wish I had, now. But—it wasn't done. There! The knowledge that turns up in the future we can't call to aid in the present. If I had had a doubt that it was you, I should have spoken. We were some days out at sea on our voyage to Australia when I and Luke got comparing notes; and I found, to my everlasting astonishment, that it was not you, after all, who had been with Rachel, but Fred."

"You should have written home, to do me justice with Mr. Verner. You ought not to have delayed one instant, when the knowledge came to you."

"And how was I to send the letter? Chuck it into the sea in the ship's wake, and give it orders to swim back to port?"

"You might have posted it at the first place you touched at."

"Look here, Lionel. I never regarded it in that grave light. How was I to suppose that old Verner would disinherit you for that trumpery escapade? I never knew why he had disinherited you, until I came home and heard from yourself the story of the inclosed glove, which he left you as a legacy. It's since then that I have been wanting to make a clean breast of it. I say, only fancy Fred's deepness! We should never have thought it of him. The quarrel between him and Rachel that night appeared to arise from the fact of her having seen him with Sibylla; having overheard that there was more between them than was pleasant to her: at least, so far as Luke could gather it. Lionel, what should have brought your glove lying by the pond?"

"I am unable to say. I had not been there, to drop it. The most feasible solution that I can come to is that Rachel may have had it about her for the purpose of mending, and let it drop herself, when she jumped in."

"Ay. That's the most likely. There was a hole in it, I remember; and it was Rachel who attended to such things in the household. It must have been so."

Lionel fell into a reverie. How—but for this mistake of John Massingbird's, this revelation to his uncle—the whole course of his life's events might have been changed! Verner's Pride bequeathed to him, never bequeathed at all to the Massingbirds, it was scarcely likely that Sibylla, in returning home, would have driven to Verner's Pride. Had she not driven to it that night, he might never have been so surprised by his old feelings as to have proposed to her. He might have married Lucy Tempest; have lived, sheltered with her in Verner's Pride from the storms of life; he might——

"Will you forgive me, old chap?"

It was John Massingbird who spoke, interrupting his day dreams. Lionel shook them off, and took the offered hand stretched out.

"Yes," he heartily said. "You did not do me the injury intentionally. It was the result of a mistake, brought about by circumstances."

"No, that I did not, by Jove!" answered John Massingbird. "I don't think I ever did a fellow an intentional injury in my life. You would have been the last I should single out for it. I have had many ups and downs, Lionel, but somehow I have hitherto always managed to alight on my legs; and I believe it's because I let other folks get along—tit for tat, you see. A fellow who is for ever putting his hindering spoke in the wheel of others, is safe to get hindering spokes put into his. I am not a pattern model," comically added John Massingbird; "but I have never done wilful injury to others, and my worst enemy (if I possess one) can't charge it upon me."

True enough. With all Mr. John Massingbird's failings, his heart was not a bad one. In the old days his escapades had been numerous; his brother Frederick's, none (so far as the world knew); but the one was liked a thousand times better than the other.

"We part friends, old fellow!" he said to Lionel the following morning, when all was ready, and the final moment of departure had come.

"To be sure we do," answered Lionel. "Should England ever see you again, you will not forget Verner's Pride."

"I don't think it will ever see me again. Thanks, old chap, all the same. If I should be done up some unlucky day for the want of a twenty-pound note, you won't refuse to let me have it, for old times' sake?"

"Very well," laughed Lionel.

And so they parted. And Verner's Pride was quit of Mr. John Massingbird, and Deerham of its long-looked-upon bete noir, old Grip Roy. Luke had gone forward to make arrangements for the sailing, as he had done once before; and Mrs. Roy took her seat with her husband in a third-class carriage, crying enough tears to float the train.



CHAPTER XCI.

MEDICAL ATTENDANCE GRATIS, INCLUDING PHYSIC.

As a matter of course, the discovery of the codicil, and the grave charge it served to establish against Dr. West, could not be hid under a bushel. Deerham was remarkably free in its comments, and was pleased to rake up various unpleasant reports, which, from time to time, in the former days had arisen, touching that gentleman. Deerham might say what it liked, and nobody be much the worse; but a more serious question arose with Jan. Easy as Jan was, little given to think ill, even he could not look over this. Jan, if he would maintain his respectability as a medical man and a gentleman, if he would retain his higher class of patients, he must give up his association with Dr. West.

The finding of the codicil had been communicated to Dr. West by Matiss, the lawyer, who officially demanded at the same time an explanation of its having been placed where it was found. The doctor replied to the communication, but conveniently ignored the question. He was "charmed" to hear that the long-missing deed was found, which restored Verner's Pride to the rightful owner, Lionel Verner; but he appeared not to have read, or else not to have understood the very broad hint implicating himself, for not a word was returned to that part, in answer. The silence was not less a conclusive proof than the admission of guilt would have been; and it was so regarded by those concerned.

Jan was the next to write. A characteristic letter. He said not a word of reproach to the doctor; he appeared, indeed, to ignore the facts as completely as the doctor himself had done in answer to Matiss; he simply said that he would prefer to "get along" now alone. The practice had much increased, and there was room for them both. He would remove to another residence—a lodging would do, he said—and run his chance of patients coming to him. It was not his intention to take one from Dr. West by solicitation. The doctor could either come back and resume practice in person, or take a partner in place of him, Jan.

To this a bland answer was received. Dr. West was agreeable to the dissolution of partnership; but he had no intention of resuming practice in Deerham. He and his noble charge (who was decidedly benefiting by his care, skill, and companionship, he elaborately wrote), were upon the best of terms; his engagement with him was likely to be a long one (for the poor youth would require a personal guide up to his fortieth year, nay, to his eightieth, if he lived so long); and therefore (not to be fettered) he, Dr. West, was anxious to sever his ties with Deerham. He should never return to it. If Mr. Jan would undertake to pay him a trifling sum, say five hundred pounds, or so he could have the entire business; and the purchase-money, if more convenient, might be paid by instalments. Mr. Jan, of course, would become sole proprietor of the house (the rent of which had hitherto been paid out of the joint concern), but perhaps he would not object to allow those "two poor old things, Deborah and Amilly, a corner in it." He should, of course, undertake to provide for them, remitting them a liberal annual sum.

In writing this—fair, nay liberal, as the offered terms appeared to the sight of single-hearted Jan—Dr. West had probably possessed as great an eye as ever to his own interest. He had a shrewd suspicion that, the house divided, his, Dr. West's, would stand but a poor chance against Jan Verner's. That Jan would be entirely true and honourable in not soliciting the old patients to come to him, he knew; but he equally knew that the patients would flock to Jan unsolicited. Dr. West had not lived in ignorance of what was going on in Deerham; he had one or two private correspondents there; besides the open ones, his daughters and Jan; and he had learned how popular Jan had grown with all classes. Yes, it was decidedly politic on Dr. West's part to offer Jan terms of purchase. And Jan closed with them.

"I couldn't have done it six months ago, you know, Lionel," he said to his brother. "But now that you have come in again to Verner's Pride, you won't care to have my earnings any longer."

"What I shall care for now, Jan, will be to repay you so far as I can. The money can be repaid: the kindness never."

"Law!" cried Jan, "that's nothing. Wouldn't you have done as much for me? To go back to old West: I shall be able to complete the purchase in little more than a year, taking it out of the profits. The expenses will be something considerable. There'll be the house, and the horses, for I must have two, and I shall take a qualified assistant as soon as Cheese leaves, which will be in autumn; but there'll be a margin of six or seven hundred a year profit left me then. And the business is increasing. Yes, I shall be able to pay him out in a year, or thereabouts. In offering me these easy terms, I think he is behaving liberally. Don't you, Lionel?"

"That may be a matter of opinion, Jan," was Lionel's answer. "He has stood to me in the relation of father-in-law, and I don't care to express mine too definitely. He is wise enough to know that when you leave him, his chance of practice is gone. But I don't advise you to cavil with the terms. I should say, accept them."

"I have done it," answered Jan. "I wrote this morning. I must get a new brass plate for the door. 'Jan Verner, Surgeon, etc.,' in place of the present one, 'West and Verner.'"