Robin's voice rose to a sound of wailing pain, and he raised his hands with a gesture of despair.

"Did your informant know that it was John Massingbird?" Lionel gravely asked.

"They had not got what is called positive proof, such as might avail in a Court of Justice; but they was morally certain," replied Robin; "and so am I. I am only waiting for one thing, sir, to tell it out to all the world."

"And what's that?"

"The returning home of Luke Roy. There's not much doubt that he knows all about it; I have my reasons for saying so, and I'd like to be quite sure before I tell out the tale. Old Roy says Luke may be expected home by any ship as comes; he don't think he'll stop there, now John Massingbird's dead."

"Then, Robin, listen to me," returned Lionel. "I have no positive proof, any more than it appears your informant has; but I am perfectly convinced in my own mind that the guilty man was not John Massingbird, but another. Understand me," he emphatically continued, "I have good and sufficient reason for saying this. Rely upon it, whoever it may have been, John Massingbird it was not."

Robin lifted his eyes to the face of Lionel.

"You say you don't know this, sir?"

"Not of actual proof. But so sure am I that it was not he, that I could stake all I possess upon it."

"Then, sir, you'd lose it," doggedly answered Robin. "When the time comes that I choose to speak out—"

"What are you doing there?" burst forth Lionel, in a severely haughty tone.

It caused Robin to start from his seat.

In a gap of the hedge behind them, Lionel had caught sight of a human face, its stealthy ears complacently taking in every word. It was that of Roy the bailiff.



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PACKET IN THE SHIRT-DRAWER.

Mrs. Tynn, the housekeeper at Verner's Pride, was holding one of those periodical visitations that she was pleased to call, when in familiar colloquy with her female assistants, a "rout out." It appeared to consist of turning a room and its contents topsy-turvy, and then putting them straight again. The chamber this time subjected to the ordeal was that of her late master, Mr. Verner. His drawers, closets, and other places consecrated to clothes, had not been meddled with since his death. Mrs. Verner, in some moment unusually (for her) given to sentiment, had told Tynn she should like to "go over his dear clothes" herself. Therefore Tynn left them alone for that purpose. Mrs. Verner, however, who loved her personal ease better than any earthly thing, and was more given to dropping off to sleep in her chair than ever, not only after dinner but all day long, never yet had ventured upon the task. Tynn suggested that she had better do it herself, after all; and Mrs. Verner replied, perhaps she had. So Tynn set about it.

Look at Mrs. Tynn over that deep, open drawer full of shirts. She calls it "Master's shirt-drawer." Have the shirts scared away her senses? She has sat herself down on the floor—almost fallen back as it seems—in some shock of alarm, and her mottled face has turned as white as her master's was, when she last saw him lying on that bed at her elbow.

"Go downstairs, Nancy, and stop there till I call you up again," she suddenly cried out to her helpmate.

And the girl left the room, grumbling to herself; for Nancy at Verner's Pride did not improve in temper.

Between two of the shirts, in the very middle of the stack, Mrs. Tynn had come upon a parcel, or letter. Not a small letter—if it was a letter—but one of very large size, thick, looking not unlike a government despatch. It was sealed with Mr. Verner's own seal, and addressed in his own handwriting—"For my nephew, Lionel Verner. To be opened after my death."

Mrs. Tynn entertained not the slightest doubt that she had come upon the lost codicil. That the parcel must have been lying quietly in the drawer since her master's death, was certain. The key of the drawer had remained in her own possession. When the search after the codicil took place, this drawer was opened—as a matter of form more than anything else—and Mrs. Tynn herself had lifted out the stack of shirts. She had assured those who were searching that there was no need to do so, for the drawer had been locked up at the time the codicil was made, and the deed could not have been put into it. They accepted her assurance, and did not look between the shirts. It puzzled Mrs. Tynn, now, to think how it could have got in.

"I'll not tell Tynn," she soliloquised—she and Tynn being somewhat inclined to take opposite sides of a question, in social intercourse—"and I'll not say a word to my mistress. I'll go straight off now and give it into the hands of Mr. Lionel. What a blessed thing!—If he should be come into his own!"

The inclosed paved court before Lady Verner's residence had a broad flower-bed round it. It was private from the outer world, save for the iron gates, and here Decima and Lucy Tempest were fond of lingering on a fine day. On this afternoon of Mary Tynn's discovery, they were there with Lionel. Decima went indoors for some string to tie up a fuchsia plant, just as Tynn appeared at the iron gates. She stopped on seeing Lionel.

"I was going round to the other entrance, sir, to ask to speak to you," she said. "Something very strange has happened."

"Come in," answered Lionel. "Will you speak here, or go indoors? What is it?"

Too excitedly eager to wait to go indoors, or to care for the presence of Lucy Tempest, Mrs. Tynn told her tale, and handed the paper to Lionel. "It's the missing codicil, as sure as that we are here, sir."

He saw the official-looking nature of the document, its great seal, and the superscription in his uncle's handwriting. Lionel did not doubt that it was the codicil, and a streak of scarlet emotion arose to his pale cheek.

"You don't open it, sir!" said the woman, as feverishly impatient as if the good fortune were her own.

No. Lionel did not open it. In his high honour, he deemed that, before opening, it should be laid before Mrs. Verner. It had been found in her house; it concerned her son. "I think it will be better that Mrs. Verner should open this, Tynn," he quietly said.

"You won't get me into a mess, sir, for bringing it out to you first?"

Lionel turned his honest eyes upon her, smiling then. "Can't you trust me better than that? You have known me long enough."

"So I have, Mr. Lionel. The mystery is, how it could ever have got into that shirt-drawer!" she continued. "I can declare that for a good week before my master died, up to the very day that the codicil was looked for, the shirt-drawer was never unlocked, nor the key of it out of my pocket."

She turned to go back to Verner's Pride, Lionel intending to follow her at once. He was going out at the gate when he caught the pleased eyes of Lucy Tempest fixed on him.

"I am so glad," she simply said. "Do you remember my telling you that you did not look like one who would have to starve on bread-and-cheese."

Lionel laughed in the joy of his heart. "I am glad also, Lucy. The place is mine by right, and it is just that I should have it."

"I have thought it very unfair, all along, that Verner's Pride should belong to her husband, and not to you, after—after what she did to you," continued Lucy, dropping her voice to a whisper.

"Things don't go by fairness, Lucy, in this world," said he, as he went through the gate. "Stay," he said, turning back from it, a thought crossing his mind. "Lucy, oblige me by not mentioning this to my mother or Decima. It may be as well to be sure that we are right, before exciting their hopes."

Lucy's countenance fell. "I will not speak of it. But, is it not sure to be the codicil?"

"I hope it is," cordially answered Lionel.

Mrs. Tynn had got back before him. She came forward and encountered him in the hall, her bonnet still on.

"I have told my mistress, sir, that I had found what I believed to be the codicil, and had took it off straight to you. She was not a bit angry; she says she hopes it is it."

Lionel entered. Mrs. Verner, who was in a semi-sleepy state, having been roused up by Mary Tynn from a long nap after a plentiful luncheon, received Lionel graciously—first of all asking him what he would take—it was generally her chief question—and then inquiring what the codicil said.

"I have not opened it," replied Lionel.

"No!" said she, in surprise. "Why did you wait?"

He laid it on the table beside her. "Have I your cordial approval to open it, Mrs. Verner?"

"You are ceremonious, Lionel. Open it at once; Verner's Pride belongs to you, more than to Fred; and you know I have always said so."

Lionel took up the deed. His finger was upon the seal when a thought crossed him; ought he to open it without further witnesses? He spoke his doubt aloud to Mrs. Verner.

"Ring the bell and have in Tynn," said she; "his wife also; she found it."

Lionel rang. Tynn and his wife both came in, in obedience to the request. Tynn looked at it curiously; and began rehearsing mentally a private lecture for his wife, for acting upon her own responsibility.

The seal was broken. The stiff writing-paper of the outer cover revealed a second cover of stiff writing-paper precisely similar to the first; but on this last there was no superscription. It was tied round with fine white twine. Lionel cut it, Tynn and Mrs. Tynn waited with the utmost eagerness; even Mrs. Verner's eyes were open wider than usual.

Alas! for the hopes of Lionel. The parcel contained nothing but a glove, and a small piece of writing-paper, folded once. Lionel unfolded it, and read the following lines:—

"This glove has come into my possession. When I tell you that I know where it was found and how you lost it, you will not wonder at the shock the discovery has been to me. I hush it up, Lionel, for your late father's sake, as much as for that of the name of Verner. I am about to seal it up that it may be given to you after my death; and you will then know why I disinherit you. S.V."

Lionel gazed on the lines like one in a dream. They were in the handwriting of his uncle. Understand them, he could not. He took up the glove—a thick, fawn-coloured riding-glove—and remembered it for one of his own. When he had lost it, or where he had lost it, he knew no more than did the table he was standing by. He had worn dozens of these gloves in the years gone by, up to the period when he had gone in mourning for John Massingbird, and, subsequently, for his uncle.

"What is it, Lionel?"

Lionel put the lines in his pocket, and pushed the glove toward Mrs. Verner. "I do not understand it in the least," he said. "My uncle appears to have found the glove somewhere, and he writes to say that he returns it to me. The chief matter that concerns us is"—turning his eyes on the servants—"that it is not the codicil!"

Mrs. Tynn lifted her hands. "How one may be deceived!" she uttered. "Mr. Lionel, I'd freely have laid my life upon it."

"It was not exactly my place to speak, sir: to give my opinion beforehand," interposed Tynn; "but I was sure that was not the lost codicil, by the very look of it. The codicil might have been about that size, and it had a big seal like that; but it was different in appearance."

"All that puzzled me was, how it could have got into the shirt-drawer," cried Mrs. Tynn. "As it has turned out not to be the codicil, of course there's no mystery about that. It may have been lying there weeks and weeks before the master died."

Lionel signed to them to leave the room: there was nothing to call for their remaining in it. Mrs. Verner asked him what the glove meant.

"I assure you I do not know," was his reply. And he took it up, and examined it well again. One of his riding gloves, scarcely worn, with a tear near the thumb; but there was nothing upon it, not so much as a trace, a spot, to afford any information. He rolled it up mechanically in the two papers, and placed them in his pocket, lost in thought.

"Do you know that I have heard from Australia?" asked Mrs. Verner.

The words aroused him thoroughly. "Have you? I did not know it."

"I wonder Mary Tynn did not tell you. The letters came this morning. If you look about"—turning her eyes on the tables and places—"you will find them somewhere."

Lionel knew that Mary Tynn had been too much absorbed in his business to find room in her thoughts for letters from Australia. "Are these the letters?" he asked, taking up two from a side-table.

"You'll know them by the post-marks. Do sit down and read them to me, Lionel. My sight is not good for letters now, and I couldn't read half that was in them. The ink's as pale as water. If it was the ink Fred took out, the sea must have washed into it. Yes, yes, you must I read both to me, and I shall not let you go away before dinner."

He did not like, in his good nature, to refuse her. And he sat there and read the long letters. Read Sibylla's. Before the last one was fully accomplished, Lionel's cheeks wore their hectic flush.

They had made a very quick and excellent passage. But Sibylla found Melbourne hateful. And Fred was ill; ill with fever. A fever was raging in a part of the crowded town, and he had caught it. She did not think it was a catching fever, either, she added; people said it arose from the over-population. They could not as yet hear of John, or his money, or anything about him; but Fred would see into it when he got better. They were at a part of Melbourne called Canvas Town, and she, Sibylla, was sick of it, and Fred drank heaps of brandy. If it were all land between her and home, she should set off at once on foot, and toil her way back again. She wished she had never come! Everything she cared for, except Fred, seemed to be left behind in England.

Such was her letter. Fred's was gloomy also, in a different way. He said nothing about any fever; he mentioned, casually, as it appeared, that he was not well, but that was all. He had not learned tidings of John, but had not had time yet to make inquiries. The worst piece of news he mentioned was the loss of his desk, which had contained the chief portion of his money. It had disappeared in a mysterious manner immediately after being taken off the ship—he concluded by the light fingers of some crimp, or thief, shoals of whom crowded on the quay. He was in hopes yet to find it, and had not told Sibylla. That was all he had to say at present, but would write again by the next packet.

"It is not very cheering news on the whole, is it?" said Mrs. Verner, as Lionel folded the letters.

"No. They had evidently not received the tidings of my uncle's death, or we should have heard that they were already coming back again."

"I don't know that," replied Mrs. Verner. "Fred worships money, and he would not suffer what was left by poor John to slip through his fingers. He will stay till he has realised it. I hope they will think to bring me back some memento of my lost boy! If it were only the handkerchief he used last, I should value it."

The tears filled her eyes. Lionel respected her grief, and remained silent. Presently she resumed, in a musing tone—

"I knew Sibylla would only prove an encumbrance to Fred, out there; and I told him so. If Fred thought he was taking out a wife who would make shift, and put up pleasantly with annoyances, he was mistaken. Sibylla in Canvas Town! Poor girl! I wonder she married him. Don't you?"

"Rather so," answered Lionel, his scarlet blush deepening.

"I do; especially to go to that place. Sibylla's a pretty flower, made to sport in the sunshine; but she never was constituted for a rough life, or to get pricked by thorns."

Lionel's heart beat. It echoed to every word. Would that she could have been sheltered from the thorns, the rough usages of life, as he would have sheltered her.

Lionel dined with Mrs. Verner, but quitted her soon afterwards. When he got back to Deerham Court, the stars were peeping out in the clear summer sky. Lucy Tempest was lingering in the courtyard, no doubt waiting for him, and she ran to meet him as soon as he appeared at the gate.

"How long you have been!" was her greeting, her glad eyes shining forth hopefully. "And is it all yours?"

Lionel drew her arm within his own in silence, and walked with her in silence until they reached the pillared entrance of the house. Then he spoke—

"You have not mentioned it, Lucy?"

"Of course I have not."

"Thank you. Let us both forget it. It was not the codicil. And Verner's Pride is not mine."



CHAPTER XXVII.

DR. WEST'S SANCTUM.

For some little time past, certain rumours had arisen in Deerham somewhat to the prejudice of Dr. West. Rumours of the same nature had circulated once or twice before during the progress of the last half dozen years; but they had died away again, or had been hushed up, never coming to anything. For one thing, their reputed scene had not lain at the immediate spot, but at Heartburg; and distance is a great discouragement to ill-natured tattle. This fresh scandal, however, was nearer. It touched the very heart of Deerham, and people made themselves remarkably busy over it—none the less busy because the accusations were vague. Tales never lose anything in carrying, and the most outrageous things were whispered of Dr. West.

A year or two previous to this, a widow lady named Baynton, with her two daughters, no longer very young, had come to live at a pretty cottage in Deerham. Nothing was known of who they were, or where they came from. They appeared to be very reserved, and made no acquaintance whatever. Under these circumstances, of course, their history was supplied for them. If you or I went and established ourselves in a fresh place to-morrow, saying nothing of who we were, or what we were, it would only be the signal for some busybody in that place to coin a story for us, and all the rest of the busybodies would immediately circulate it. It was said of Mrs. Baynton that she had been left in reduced circumstances; had fallen from some high pedestal of wealth, through the death of her husband; that she lived in a perpetual state of mortification in consequence of her present poverty, and would not admit a single inhabitant of Deerham within her doors to witness it. There may have been as little truth in it as in the greatest canard that ever flew; but Deerham promulgated it, Deerham believed in it, and the Bayntons never contradicted it. The best of all reasons for this may have been that they never heard of it. They lived quietly on alone, interfering with nobody, and going out rarely. In appearance and manners they were gentlewomen, and rather haughty gentlewomen, too; but they kept no servant. How their work was done, Deerham could not conceive: it was next to impossible to fancy one of those ladies scrubbing a floor or making a bed. The butcher called for orders, and took in the meat, which was nearly always mutton-chops; the baker left his bread at the door, and the laundress was admitted inside the passage once a week.

The only other person admitted inside was Dr. West. He had been called in, on their first arrival, to the invalid daughter—a delicate-looking lady, who, when she did walk out, leaned on her sister's arm. Dr. West's visits became frequent; they had continued frequent up to within a short period of the present time. Once or twice a week he called in professionally; he would also occasionally drop in for an hour in the evening. Some people passing Chalk Cottage (that was what it was named) had contrived to stretch their necks over the high privet hedge which hid the lower part of the dwelling from the road, and were immensely gratified by the fact of seeing Dr. West in the parlour, seated at tea with the family. How the doctor was questioned, especially in the earlier period of their residence, he alone could tell. Who were they? Were they well connected, or ill connected, or not connected at all? Were they known to fashion? How much was really their income? What was the matter with the one whom he attended, the sickly daughter, and what was her name? The questions would have gone on until now, but that the doctor stopped them. He had not made impertinent inquiries himself, he said, and had nothing at all to tell. The younger lady's complaint arose from disordered liver; he had no objection to tell them that; she had been so long a sufferer from it that the malady had become chronic; and her name was Kitty.

Now, it was touching this very family that the scandal had arisen. How it arose was the puzzle; since the ladies themselves never spoke to anybody, and Dr. West would not be likely to invent or to spread stories affecting himself. Its precise nature was buried in uncertainty, also its precise object. Some said one thing, some another. The scandal, on the whole, tended to the point that Dr. West had misbehaved himself. In what way? What had he done? Had he personally ill-treated them—sworn at them—done anything else unbecoming a gentleman? And which had been the sufferer? The old lady in her widow's cap? or the sickly daughter? or the other one? Could he have carelessly supplied wrong medicine; sent to them some arsenic instead of Epsom Salts, and so thrown them into fright, and danger, and anger? Had he scaled the privet hedge in the night, and robbed the garden of its cabbages? What, in short, was it that he had done? Deerham spoke out pretty broadly, as to the main facts, although the rumoured details were varied and obscure. It declared that some of Dr. West's doings at Chalk Cottage had not been orthodox, and that discovery had followed.

There are two classes of professional men upon whom not a taint should rest; who ought, in familiar phrase, to keep their hands clean—the parson of the parish, and the family doctor. Other people may dye themselves in Warren's jet if they like; but let as much as a spot get on him who stands in the pulpit to preach to us, or on him who is admitted to familiar intercourse with our wives and children, and the spot grows into a dark thundercloud. What's the old saying? "One man may walk in at the gate, while another must not look over the hedge." It runs something after that fashion. Had Dr. West not been a family doctor, the scandal might have been allowed to die out: as it was, Deerham kept up the ball, and rolled it. The chief motive for this, the one that influenced Deerham above all others, was unsatisfied curiosity. Could Deerham have gratified this to the full, it would have been content to subside into quietness.

Whether it was true, or whether it was false, there was no denying that it had happened at an unfortunate moment for Dr. West. A man always in debt—and what he did with his money Deerham could not make out, for his practice was a lucrative one—he had latterly become actually embarrassed. Deerham was good-natured enough to say that a handsome sum had found its way to Chalk Cottage, in the shape of silence-money, or something of the sort; but Deerham did not know. Dr. West was at his wits' end where to turn to for a shilling—had been so, for some weeks past; so that he had no particular need of anything worse coming down upon him. Perhaps what gave a greater colour to the scandal than anything else was the fact that, simultaneously with its rise, Dr. West's visits to Chalk Cottage had suddenly ceased.

Only one had been bold enough to speak upon the subject personally to Dr. West, and that was the proud old baronet, Sir Rufus Hautley. He rode down to the doctor's house one day; and, leaving his horse with his groom, had a private interview with the doctor. That Dr. West must have contrived to satisfy him in some way, was undoubted. Rigidly severe and honourable, Sir Rufus would no more have countenanced wrongdoing, than he would have admitted Dr. West again to his house, whether as doctor or anything else, had he been guilty of it. But when Sir Rufus went away, Dr. West attended him to the door, and they parted cordially, Sir Rufus saying something to the effect that he was glad his visit had dispelled the doubt arising from these unpleasing rumours, and he would recommend Dr. West to inquire into their source, with a view of bringing their authors to punishment. Dr. West replied that he should make it his business to do so. Dr. West, however, did nothing of the sort; or if he did do it, it was in strict privacy.

Jan sat one day astride on the counter in his frequent abiding-place, the surgery. Jan had got a brass vessel before him, and was mixing certain powders in it, preparatory to some experiment in chemistry, Master Cheese performing the part of looker-on, his elbows, as usual, on the counter.

"I say, we had such a start here this morning," began young Cheese, as if the recollection had suddenly occurred to him. "It was while you had gone your round."

"What start was that?"

"Some fellow came here, and—I say, Jan," broke off young Cheese, "did you ever know that room had got a second entrance to it?"

He pointed to the door of the back room—a room which was used exclusively by Dr. West. He had been known to see patients there on rare occasions, but neither Jan nor young Cheese was ever admitted into it. It opened with a latch-key only.

"There is another door leading into it from the garden," replied Jan. "It's never opened. It has got all those lean-to boards piled against it."

"Is it never opened, then?" retorted Master Cheese. "You just hear. A fellow came poking his nose into the premises this morning, staring up at the house, staring round about him, and at last he walks in here. A queer-looking fellow he was, with a beard, and appeared as if he had come a thousand miles or two, on foot. 'Is Dr. West at home?' he asked. I told him the doctor was not at home; for, you see, Jan, it wasn't ten minutes since the doctor had gone out. So he said he'd wait. And he went peering about and handling the bottles; and once he took the scales up, as if he'd like to test their weight. I kept my eye on him. I thought a queer fellow like that might be going to walk off with some physic, like Miss Amilly walks off the castor oil. Presently he comes to that door. 'Where does this lead to?' said he. 'A private room,' said I, 'and please to keep your hands off it.' Not he. He lays hold of the false knob, and shakes it, and turns it, and pushes the door, trying to open it. It was fast. Old West had come out of there before going out, and catch him ever leaving that door open! I say, Jan, one would think he kept skeletons there."

"Is that all?" asked Jan, alluding to the story.

"Wait a bit. The fellow put his big fist upon the latch-key-hole—I think he must have been a feller of trees, I do—and his knee to the door, and he burst it open. Burst it open, Jan! you never saw such strength."

"I could burst any door open that I had a mind to," was the response of Jan.

"He burst it open," continued young Cheese, "and burst it against old West. You should have seen 'em stare! They both stared. I stared. I think the chap did not mean to do it; that he was only trying his strength for pastime. But now, Jan, the odd part of the business is, how did West get in? If there's not another door, he must have got down the chimney."

Jan went on with his compounding, and made no response.

"And if there is a door, he must have been mortal sly over it," resumed the young gentleman. "He must have gone right out from here, and in at the side gate of the garden, and got in that way. I wonder what he did it for?"

"It isn't any business of ours," said Jan.

"Then I think it is," retorted Master Cheese. "I'd like to know how many times he has been in there, listening to us, when we thought him a mile off. It's a shame!"

"It's nothing to me who listens," said Jan equably. "I don't say things behind people's backs, that I'd not say before their faces."

"I do," acknowledged young Cheese. "Wasn't there a row! Didn't he and the man go on at each other! They shut themselves up in that room, and had it out."

"What did the man want?" asked Jan.

"I'd like to know. He and old West had it out together, I say, but they didn't admit me to the conference. Goodness knows where he had come from. West seemed to know him. Jan, I heard something about him and the Chalk Cottage folks yesterday."

"You had better take yourself to a safe distance," advised Jan. "If this goes off with a bang, your face will come in for the benefit."

"I say, though, it's you that must take care and not let it go off," returned Master Cheese, edging, nevertheless, a little away. "But about that room? If old West——"

The words were interrupted. The door of the room in question was pushed open, and Dr. West came out of it. Had Master Cheese witnessed the arrival of an inhabitant from the other world, introduced by the most privileged medium extant, he could not have experienced more intense astonishment. He had truly believed, as he had just expressed it, that Dr. West was at that moment a good mile away.

"Put your hat on, Cheese," said Dr. West.

Cheese put it on, going into a perspiration at the same time. He thought nothing less than that he was about to be dismissed.

"Take this note up to Sir Rufus Hautley's."

It was a great relief; and Master Cheese received the note in his hand, and went off whistling.

"Step in here, Mr. Jan," said the doctor.

Jan took one of his long legs over the counter, jumped off, and stepped in—into the doctor's sanctum. Had Jan been given to speculation, he might have wondered what was coming; but it was Jan's method to take things cool and easy, as they came, and not to anticipate them.

"My health has been bad of late," began the doctor.

"Law!" cried Jan. "What has been the matter?"

"A general disarrangement of the system altogether, I fancy," returned Dr. West. "I believe that the best thing to restore me will be change of scene—travelling; and an opportunity to embrace it has presented itself. I am solicited by an old friend of mine, in practice in London, to take charge of a nobleman's son for some months—to go abroad with him."

"Is he ill?" asked literal Jan, to whom it never occurred to ask whether Dr. West had first of all applied to his old friend to seek after such a post for him.

"His health is delicate, both mentally and bodily," replied Dr. West. "I should like to undertake it: the chief difficulty is leaving you here alone."

"I dare say I can do it all," said Jan. "My legs get over the ground quick. I can take to your horse."

"If you find you cannot do it, you might engage an assistant," suggested Dr. West.

"So I might," said Jan.

"I should see no difficulty at all in the matter if you were my partner. It would be the same as leaving myself, and the patients could not grumble. But it is not altogether the thing to leave only an assistant, as you are, Mr. Jan."

"Make me your partner, if you like," said cool Jan. "I don't mind. What'll it cost?"

"Ah, Mr. Jan, it will cost more than you possess. At least, it ought."

"I have got five hundred pounds," said Jan. "I wanted Lionel to have it, but he won't. Is that of any use?"

Dr. West coughed. "Well, under the circumstances——But it is very little! I am sure you must know that it is. Perhaps, Mr. Jan, we can come to some arrangement by which I take the larger share for the present. Say that, for this year, you forward me——"

"Why, how long do you mean to be away?" interrupted Jan.

"I can't say. One year, two years, three years—it may be even more than that. I expect this will be a long and a lucrative engagement. Suppose, I say, that for the first year you transmit to me the one-half of the net profits, and, beyond that, hand over to Deborah a certain sum, as shall be agreed upon, towards housekeeping."

"I don't mind how it is," said easy Jan. "They'll stop here, then?"

"Of course they will. My dear Mr. Jan, everything, I hope, will go on just as it goes on now, save that I shall be absent. You and Cheese—whom I hope you'll keep in order—and the errand boy: it will all be just as it has been. As to the assistant, that will be a future consideration."

"I'd rather be without one, if I can do it," cried Jan; "and Cheese will be coming on. Am I to live with 'em?"

"With Deb and Amilly? Why not? Poor, unprotected old things, what would they do without you? And now, Mr. Jan, as that is settled so far, we will sit down, and go further into details. I know I can depend upon your not mentioning this abroad."

"If you don't want me to mention it, you can. But where's the harm?"

"It is always well to keep these little arrangements private," said the doctor. "Matiss will draw up the deed, and I will take you round and introduce you as my partner. But there need not be anything said beforehand. Neither need there be anything said at all about my going away, until I actually go. You will oblige me in this, Mr. Jan."

"It's all the same to me," said accommodating Jan. "Whose will be this room, then?"

"Yours, to do as you please with, of course, so long as I am away."

"I'll have a turn-up bedstead put in it and sleep here, then," quoth Jan. "When folks come in the night, and ring me up, I shall be handy. It'll be better than disturbing the house, as is the case now."

The doctor appeared struck with the proposition.

"I think it would be a very good plan, indeed," he said. "I don't fancy the room's damp."

"Not it," said Jan. "If it were damp, it wouldn't hurt me. I have no time to be ill, I haven't. Damp—Who's that?"

It was a visitor to the surgery—a patient of Dr. West's—and, for the time, the conference was broken up, not to be renewed until evening.

Dr. West and Jan were both fully occupied all the afternoon. When business was over—as much so as a doctor's business ever can be over—Jan knocked at the door of this room, where Dr. West again was.

It was opened about an inch, and the face of the doctor appeared in the aperture, peering out to ascertain who might be disturbing him. The same aperture which enabled him to see out, enabled Jan to see in.

"Why! what's up?" cried unceremonious Jan.

Jan might well ask it. The room contained a table, a desk or two, some sets of drawers, and other receptacles for the custody of papers. All these were turned out, desks and drawers alike stood open, and their contents, a mass of papers, were scattered everywhere.

The doctor could not, in good manners, shut the door right in his proposed new partner's face. He opened it an inch or two more. His own face was purple: it wore a startled, perplexed look, and the drops of moisture had gathered on his forehead. That he was not in the most easy frame of mind was evident. Jan put one foot into the room: he could not put two, unless he had stepped upon the papers.

"What's the matter?" asked Jan, perceiving the signs of perturbation on the doctor's countenance.

"I have had a loss," said the doctor. "It's the most extraordinary thing, but a—a paper, which was here this morning, I cannot find anywhere. I must find it!" he added, in ill-suppressed agitation. "I'd rather lose everything I possess, than lose that."

"Where did you put it? When did you have it?" cried Jan, casting his eyes around.

"I kept it in a certain drawer," replied Dr. West, too much disturbed to be anything but straightforward. "I have not had it in my hand for—oh, I cannot tell how long—months and months, until this morning. I wanted to refer to it then, and got it out. I was looking it over when a rough, ill-bred fellow burst the door open——"

"I heard of that," interrupted Jan. "Cheese told me."

"He burst the door open, and I put the paper back in its place before I spoke to him," continued Dr. West. "Half an hour ago I went to take it out again, and I found it had disappeared."

"The fellow must have walked it off," cried Jan, a conclusion not unnatural.

"He could not," said Dr. West; "it is quite an impossibility. I went back there"—pointing to a bureau of drawers behind him—"and put the paper hastily in, and locked it in, returning the keys to my pocket. The man had not stepped over the threshold of the door then; he was a little taken to, I fancy, at his having burst the door, and he stood there staring."

"Could he have got at it afterwards?" asked Jan.

"It is, I say, an impossibility. He never was within a yard or two of the bureau; and, if he had been, the place was firmly locked. That man it certainly was not. Nobody has been in the room since, save myself, and you for a few minutes to-day when I called you in. And yet the paper is gone!"

"Could anybody have come into the room by the other door?" asked Jan.

"No. It opens with a latch-key only, as this does, and the key was safe in my pocket."

"Well, this beats everything," cried Jan. "It's like the codicil at Verner's Pride."

"The very thing it put me in mind of," said Dr. West. "I'd rather—I'd rather have lost that codicil, had it been mine, than lose this, Mr. Jan."

Jan opened his eyes. Jan had a knack of opening his eyes when anything surprised him—tolerably wide, too, "What paper was it, then?" he cried.

"It was a prescription, Mr. Jan."

"A prescription!" returned Jan, the answer not lessening his wonder. "That's not much. Isn't it in the book?"

"No, it is not in the book," said Dr. West. "It was too valuable to be in the book. You may look, Mr. Jan, but I mean what I say. This was a private prescription of inestimable value—a secret prescription, I may say. I would not have lost it for the whole world."

The doctor wiped the dew from his perplexed forehead, and strove, though unsuccessfully, to control his agitated voice to calmness. Jan could only stare. All this fuss about a prescription!

"Did it contain the secret for compounding Life's Elixir?" asked he.

"It contained what was more to me than that," said Dr. West. "But you can't help me, Mr. Jan. I would rather be left to the search alone."

"I hope you'll find it yet," returned Jan, taking the hint and retreating to the surgery. "You must have overlooked it amongst some of these papers."

"I hope I shall," replied the doctor.

And he shut himself up to the search, and turned over the papers. But he never found what he had lost, although he was still turning and turning them at morning light.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

MISS DEBORAH'S ASTONISHMENT.

One dark morning, near the beginning of November—in fact, it was the first morning of that gloomy month—Jan was busy in the surgery. Jan was arranging things there according to his own pleasure; for Dr. West had departed that morning early, and Jan was master of the field.

Jan had risen betimes. Never a sluggard, he had been up now for some hours, and had effected so great a metamorphosis in the surgery that the doctor himself would hardly have known it again: things in it previously never having been arranged to Jan's satisfaction. And now he was looking at his watch to see whether breakfast time was coming on, Jan's hunger reminding him that it might be acceptable. He had not yet been into the house; his bedroom now being the room you have heard of, the scene of Dr. West's lost prescription. The doctor had gone by the six o'clock train, after a cordial farewell to Jan; he had gone—as it was soon to turn out—without having previously informed his daughters. But of this Jan knew nothing.

"Twenty minutes past eight," quoth Jan, consulting his watch, a silver one, the size of a turnip. Jan had bought it when he was poor: had given about two pounds for it, second-hand. It never occurred to Jan to buy a better one while that legacy of his was lying idle. Why should he? Jan's turnip kept time to a moment, and Jan did not understand buying things for show. "Ten minutes yet! I shall eat a double share of bacon this morning.—Good-morning, Miss Deb."

Miss Deb was stealing into the surgery with a scared look and a white face. Miss Deb wore her usual winter morning costume, a huge brown cape. She was of a shivery nature at the best of times, but she shivered palpably now.

"Mr. Jan, have you got a drop of ether?" asked she, her poor teeth chattering together. Jan was too good-natured to tell Deerham those teeth were false, though Dr. West had betrayed the secret to Jan.

"Who's it for?" asked Jan. "For you? Aren't you well, Miss Deb? Eat some breakfast; that's the best thing."

"I have had a dreadful shock, Mr. Jan. I have had bad news. That is—what has been done to the surgery?" she broke off, casting her eyes around it in wonder.

"Not much," said Jan. "I have been making some odds and ends of alteration. Is the news from Australia?" he continued, the open letter in her hand helping him to the suggestion. "A mail's due."

Miss Deborah shook her head. "It is from my father, Mr. Jan. The first thing I saw, upon going into the breakfast parlour, was this note for me, propped against the vase on the mantel-piece. Mr. Jan"—dropping her voice to confidence—"it says he is gone! That he is gone away for an indefinite period."

"You don't mean to say he never told you of it before!" exclaimed Jan.

"I never heard a syllable from him," cried poor Deborah. "He says you'll explain to us as much as is necessary. You can read the note. Mr. Jan, where's he gone?"

Jan ran his eyes over the note; feeling himself probably in somewhat of a dilemma as to how much or how little it might be expedient to explain.

"He thought some travelling might be beneficial to his health," said Jan. "He has got a rare good post as travelling doctor to some young chap of quality."

Miss Deborah was looking very hard at Jan. Something seemed to be on her mind; some great fear. "He says he may not be back for ever so long to come, Mr. Jan."

"So he told me," said Jan.

"And is that the reason he took you into partnership, Mr. Jan?"

"Yes," said Jan. "Couldn't leave an assistant for an indefinite period."

"You will never be able to do it all yourself. I little thought, when all this bustle and changing of bedrooms was going on, what was up. You might have told me, Mr. Jan," she added, in a reproachful tone.

"It wasn't my place to tell you," returned Jan. "It was the doctor's."

Miss Deborah looked timidly round, and then sunk her voice to a lower whisper. "Mr. Jan, why has he gone away?"

"For his health," persisted Jan.

"They are saying—they are saying—Mr. Jan, what is it that they are saying about papa and those ladies at Chalk Cottage?"

Jan laid hold of the pestle and mortar, popped in a big lump of some hard-looking white substance, and began pounding away at it. "How should I know anything about the ladies at Chalk Cottage?" asked he. "I never was inside their door; I never spoke to any one of 'em."

"But you know that things are being said," urged Miss Deborah, with almost feverish eagerness. "Don't you?"

"Who told you anything was being said?" asked Jan.

"It was Master Cheese. Mr. Jan, folks have seemed queer lately. The servants have whispered together, and then have glanced at me and Amilly, and I knew there was something wrong, but I could not get at it. This morning, when I picked up this note—it's not five minutes ago, Mr. Jan—in my fright and perplexity I shrieked out; and Master Cheese, he said something about Chalk Cottage."

"What did he say?" asked Jan.

Miss Deborah's pale face turned to crimson. "I can't tell," she said. "I did not hear the words rightly. Master Cheese caught them up again. Mr. Jan, I have come to you to tell me."

Jan answered nothing. He was pounding very fiercely.

"Mr. Jan, I ought to know it," she went on. "I am not a child. If you please I must request you to tell me."

"What are you shivering for?" asked Jan.

"I can't help it. Is—is it anything that—that he can be taken up for?"

"Taken up!" replied Jan, ceasing from his pounding, and fixing his wide-open eyes on Miss Deborah. "Can I be taken up for doing this?"—and he brought down the pestle with such force as to threaten the destruction of the mortar.

"You'll tell me, please," she shivered.

"Well," said Jan, "if you must know it, the doctor had a misfortune."

"A misfortune! He! What misfortune! A misfortune at Chalk Cottage?"

Jan gravely nodded. "And they were in an awful rage with him, and said he should pay expenses, and all that. And he wouldn't pay expenses—the chimney-glass alone was twelve pound fifteen; and there was a regular quarrel, and they turned him out."

"But what was the nature of the misfortune?"

"He set the parlour chimney on fire."

Miss Deborah's lips parted with amazement; she appeared to find some difficulty in closing them again.

"Set the parlour chimney on fire, Mr. Jan!"

"Very careless of him," continued Jan, with composure. "He had no business to carry gunpowder about with him. Of course they won't believe but he flung it in purposely."

Miss Deborah could not gather her senses. "Who won't?—the ladies at Chalk Cottage?"

"The ladies at Chalk Cottage," assented Jan. "If I saw all these bottles go to smithereens, through Cheese stowing gunpowder in his trousers' pockets, I might go into a passion too, Miss Deb."

"But, Mr. Jan—this is not what's being said in Deerham?"

"Law, if you go by all that's said in Deerham, you'll have enough to do," cried Jan. "One says one thing and one says another. No two are ever in the same tale. When that codicil was lost at Verner's Pride, ten different people were accused by Deerham of stealing it."

"Were they?" responded Miss Deborah abstractedly.

"Did you never hear it! You just ask Deerham about the row between the doctor and Chalk Cottage, and you'll hear ten versions, all different. What else could be expected? As if he'd take the trouble to explain the rights of it to them! Not that I should advise you to ask," concluded Jan pointedly. "Miss Deborah, do you know the time?"

"It must be half-past eight," she repeated mechanically, her thoughts buried in a reverie.

"And turned," said Jan. "I'd be glad of breakfast. I shall have the gratis patients here."

"It shall be ready in two minutes," said Miss Deborah meekly. And she went out of the surgery.

Presently young Cheese came leaping into it. "The breakfast's ready," cried he.

Jan stretched out his long arm, and pinned Master Cheese.

"What have you been saying to Miss Deb?" he asked. "Look here; who is your master now?"

"You are, I suppose," said the young gentleman.

"Very well. You just bear that in mind; and don't go carrying tales indoors of what Deerham says. Attend to your own business and leave Dr. West's alone."

Master Cheese was considerably astonished. He had never heard such a speech from easy Jan.

"I say, though, are you going to turn out a bashaw with three tails?" asked he.

"Yes," replied Jan. "I have promised Dr. West to keep you in order, and I shall do it."



CHAPTER XXIX.

AN INTERCEPTED JOURNEY.

Dr. West's was not the only departure from Deerham that was projected for that day. The other was that of Lionel Verner. Fully recovered, he had deemed it well to waste no more time. Lady Verner suggested that he should remain in Deerham until the completion of the year; Lionel replied that he had remained in it rather too long already, that he must be up and doing. He was eager to be "up and doing," and his first step towards it was the proceeding to London and engaging chambers. He fixed upon the first day of November for his departure, unconscious that that day had also been fixed upon by Dr. West for his. However, the doctor was off long before Lionel was out of bed.

Lionel rose all excitement—all impulse to begin his journey, to be away from Deerham. Somebody else rose with feelings less pleasurable; and that was Lucy Tempest. Now that the real time of separation had come, Lucy awoke to the state of her own feelings; to the fact, that the whole world contained but one beloved face for her—that of Lionel Verner.

She awoke with no start, she saw nothing wrong in it, she did not ask herself how it was to end, what the future was to be; any vision of marrying Lionel, which might have flashed across the active brain of a more sophisticated young lady, never occurred to Lucy. All she knew was that she had somehow glided into a state of existence different from anything she had ever experienced before; that her days were all brightness, the world an Eden, and that it was the presence of Lionel that made the sunshine.

She stood before the glass, twisting her soft brown hair, her cheeks crimson with excitement, her eyes bright. The morrow morning would be listless enough; but this, the last on which she would see him, was gay with rose hues of love. Stay! not gay; that is a wrong expression. It would have been gay but for that undercurrent of feeling which was whispering that, in a short hour or two, all would change to the darkest shade.

"He says it may be a twelvemonth before he shall come home again," she said to herself, her white fingers trembling as she fastened her pretty morning-dress. "How lonely it will be! What shall we do all that while without him? Oh, dear, what's the matter with me this morning?"

In her perturbed haste, she had fastened her dress all awry, and had to undo it again. The thought that she might be keeping them waiting breakfast—which was to be taken that morning a quarter of an hour earlier than usual—did not tend to expedite her. Lucy thought of the old proverb: "The more haste, the less speed."

"How I wish I dare ask him to come sooner than that to see us! But he might think it strange. I wonder he should not come! there's Christmas, there's Easter, and he must have holiday then. A whole year, perhaps more; and not to see him!"

She passed out of the room and descended, her soft skirts of pink-shaded cashmere sweeping the staircase. You saw her in it the evening she first came to Lady Verner's. It had lain by almost ever since, and was now converted into a morning dress. The breakfast-room was empty. Instead of being behind her time, Lucy found she was before it. Lady Verner had not risen; she rarely did rise to breakfast; and Decima was in Lionel's room, busy over some of his things.

Lionel himself was the next to enter. His features broke into a glad smile when he saw Lucy. A fairer picture, she, Mr. Lionel Verner, than even that other vision of loveliness which your mind has been pleased to make its ideal—Sibylla!

"Down first, Lucy!" he cried, shaking hands with her. "You wish me somewhere, I dare say, getting you up before your time."

"By how much—a few minutes?" she answered, laughing. "It wants twenty minutes to nine. What would they have said to me at the rectory, had I come down so late as that?"

"Ah, well, you won't have me here to torment you to-morrow. I have been a trouble to you, Lucy, take it altogether. You will be glad to see my back turned."

Lucy shook her head. She looked shyly up at him in her timidity; but she answered truthfully still.

"I shall be sorry; not glad."

"Sorry! Why should you be sorry, Lucy?" and his voice insensibly assumed a tone of gentleness. "You cannot have cared for me; for the companionship of a half-dead fellow, like myself!"

Lucy rallied her courage. "Perhaps it was because you were half dead that I cared for you," she answered.

"I suppose it was," mused Lionel, aloud, his thoughts cast back to the past. "I will bid you good-bye now, Lucy, while we are alone. Believe me that I part from you with regret; that I do heartily thank you for all you have been to me."

Lucy looked up at him, a yearning, regretful sort of look, and her eyelashes grew wet. Lionel had her hand in his, and was looking down at her.

"Lucy, I do think you are sorry to part with me!" he exclaimed.

"Just a little," she answered.

If you, good, grave sir, had been stoical enough to resist the upturned face, Lionel was not. He bent his lips and left a kiss upon it.

"Keep it until we meet again," he whispered.

Jan came in while they were at breakfast.

"I can't stop a minute," were his words when Decima asked him why he did not sit down. "I thought I'd run up and say good-bye to Lionel, but I am wanted in all directions. Mrs. Verner has sent for me, and there are the regular patients."

"Dr. West attends Mrs. Verner, Jan," said Decima.

"He did," replied Jan. "It is to be myself, now. West is gone."

"Gone!" was the universal echo. And Jan gave an explanation.

It was received in silence. The rumours affecting Dr. West had reached Deerham Court.

"What is the matter with Mrs. Verner?" asked Lionel. "She appeared as well as usual when I quitted her last night."

"I don't know that there's anything more the matter with her than usual," returned Jan, sitting down on a side-table. "She has been going in some time for apoplexy."

"Oh, Jan!" uttered Lucy.

"So she has, Miss Lucy—as Dr. West has said. I have not attended her."

"Has she been told it, Jan?"

"Where's the good of telling her?" asked Jan. "She knows it fast enough. She'd not forego a meal, if she saw the fit coming on before night. Tynn came round to me, just now, and said his mistress felt poorly. The Australian mail is in," continued Jan, passing to another subject.

"Is it?" cried Decima.

Jan nodded.

"I met the postman as I was coming out, and he told me. I suppose there'll be news from Fred and Sibylla."

After this little item of information, which called the colour into Lucy's cheek—she best knew why—but which Lionel appeared to listen to impassively, Jan got off the table—

"Good-bye, Lionel," said he, holding out his hand.

"What's your hurry, Jan?" asked Lionel.

"Ask my patients," responded Jan, "I am off the first thing to Mrs. Verner, and then shall take my round. I wish you luck, Lionel."

"Thank you, Jan," said Lionel. "Nothing less than the woolsack, of course."

"My gracious!" said literal Jan. "I say, Lionel, I'd not count upon that. If only one in a thousand gets to the woolsack, and all the lot expect it, what an amount of heart-burning must be wasted."

"Right, Jan. Only let me lead my circuit and I shall deem myself lucky."

"How long will it take you before you can accomplish that?" asked Jan. "Twenty years?"

A shade crossed Lionel's countenance. That he was beginning late in life, none knew better than he. Jan bade him farewell, and departed for Verner's Pride.

Lady Verner was down before Lionel went. He intended to take the quarter-past ten o'clock train.

"When are we to meet again?" she asked, holding her hand in his.

"I will come home to see you soon, mother."

"Soon! I don't like the vague word," returned Lady Verner. "Why cannot you come for Christmas?"

"Christmas! I shall scarcely have gone."

"You will come, Lionel?"

"Very well, mother. As you wish it, I will."

A crimson flush—a flush of joy—rose to Lucy's countenance. Lionel happened to have glanced at her. I wonder what he thought of it!

His luggage had gone on, and he walked with a hasty step to the station. The train came in two minutes after he reached it. Lionel took his ticket, and stepped into a first-class carriage.

All was ready. The whistle sounded, and the guard had one foot on his van-step, when a shouting and commotion was heard. "Stop! Stop!" Lionel, like others, looked out, and beheld the long legs of his brother Jan come flying along the platform. Before Lionel had well known what was the matter, or had gathered in the hasty news, Jan had pulled him out of the carriage, and the train went shrieking on without him.

"There goes my luggage, and here am I and my ticket!" cried Lionel. "You have done a pretty thing, Jan. What do you say?"

"It's all true, Lionel. She was crying over the letters when I got there. And pretty well I have raced back to stop your journey. Of course you will not go away now. He's dead."

"I don't understand yet," gasped Lionel, feeling, however, that he did understand.

"Not understand," repeated Jan. "It's easy enough. Fred Massingbird's dead, poor fellow; he died of fever three weeks after they landed; and you are master of Verner's Pride."



CHAPTER XXX.

NEWS FROM AUSTRALIA.

Lionel Verner could scarcely believe in his own identity. The train, which was to have contained him, was whirling towards London; he, a poor aspirant for future fortune, ought to have been in it; he had counted most certainly to be in it; but here was he, while the steam of that train yet snorted in his ears, walking out of the station, a wealthy man, come into a proud inheritance, the inheritance of his fathers. In the first moment of tumultuous thought, Lionel almost felt as if some fairy must have been at work with a magic wand.

It was all true. He linked his arm within Jan's, and listened to the recital in detail. Jan had found Mrs. Verner, on his arrival at Verner's Pride, weeping over letters from Australia; one from a Captain Cannonby, one from Sibylla. They contained the tidings that Frederick Massingbird had died of fever, and that Sibylla was anxious to come home again.

"Who is Captain Cannonby?" asked Lionel of Jan.

"Have you forgotten the name?" returned Jan. "That friend of Fred Massingbird's who sold out, and was knocking about London; Fred went up once or twice to see him. He went to the diggings last autumn, and it seems Fred and Sibylla lighted on him at Melbourne. He had laid poor Fred in the grave the day before he wrote, he says."

"I can scarcely believe it all now, Jan," said Lionel. "What a change!"

"Ay. You won't believe it for a day or two. I say, Lionel, Uncle Stephen need not have left Verner's Pride to the Massingbirds; they have not lived to enjoy it. Neither need there have been all that bother about the codicil. I know what."

"What?" asked Lionel, looking at him; for Jan spoke significantly.

"That Madam Sibylla would give her two ears now to have married you, instead of Fred Massingbird."

Lionel's face flushed, and he replied coldly, hauteur in his tone, "Nonsense, Jan! you are speaking most unwarrantably. When Sibylla chose Fred Massingbird, I was the heir to Verner's Pride."

"I know," said Jan. "Verner's Pride would be a great temptation to Sibylla; and I can but think she knew it was left to Fred when she married him."

Lionel did not condescend to retort. He would as soon believe himself capable of bowing down before the god of gold, in a mean spirit, as believe Sibylla capable of it. Indeed, though he was wont to charm himself with the flattering notion that his love for Sibylla had died out, or near upon it, he was very far off the point when he could think any ill of Sibylla.

"My patients will be foaming," remarked Jan, who continued his way to Verner's Pride with Lionel. "They will conclude I have gone off with Dr. West; and I have his list on my hands now, as well as my own. I say, Lionel, when I told you the letters from Australia were in, how little we guessed they would contain this news."

"Little, indeed!" said Lionel.

"I suppose you won't go to London now?"

"I suppose not," was the reply of Lionel; and a rush of gladness illumined his heart as he spoke it. No more toil over those dry old law books! The study had never been to his taste.

The servants were gathered in the hall when Lionel and Jan entered it. Decorously sorry, of course, for the tidings which had arrived, but unable to conceal the inward satisfaction which peeped out—not satisfaction at the death of Fred, but at the accession of Lionel. It is curious to observe how jealous the old retainers of a family are, upon all points which touch the honour or the well-being of the house. Fred Massingbird was an alien; Lionel was a Verner; and now, as Lionel entered, they formed into a double line that he might pass between them, their master from henceforth.

Mrs. Verner was in the old place, the study. Jan had seen her in bed that morning; but, since then, she had risen. Early as the hour yet was, recent as the sad news had been, Mrs. Verner had dropped asleep. She sat nodding in her chair, snoring heavily, breathing painfully, her neck and face all one colour—carmine red. That she looked—as Jan had observed—a very apoplectic subject, struck Lionel most particularly on this morning.

"Why don't you bleed her, Jan?" he whispered.

"She won't be bled," responded Jan. "She won't take physic. She won't do anything that she ought to do. You may as well talk to a post. She'll do nothing but eat and drink, and fall asleep afterwards, and then wake up to eat and drink and fall asleep again. Mrs. Verner"—exalting his voice—"here's Lionel."

Mrs. Verner partially woke up. Her eyes opened sufficiently to observe Jan; and her mind apparently grew awake to a confused remembrance of facts. "He's gone to London," said she to Jan. "You won't catch him:" and then she nodded again.

"I did catch him," shouted Jan. "Lionel's here."

Lionel sat down by her, and she woke up pretty fully.

"I am grieved at this news for your sake, Mrs. Verner," he said in a kind tone, as he took her hand. "I am sorry for Frederick."

"Both my boys gone before me, Lionel!" she cried, melting into tears—"John first; Fred next. Why did they go out there to die?"

"It is indeed sad for you," replied Lionel. "Jan says Fred died of fever."

"He has died of fever. Don't you remember when Sibylla wrote, she said he was ill with fever? He never got well. He never got well! I take it that it must have been a sort of intermittent fever—pretty well one day, down ill the next—for he had started for the place where John died—I forget its name, but you'll find it written there. Only a few hours after quitting Melbourne, he grew worse and died."

"Was he alone?" asked Lionel.

"Captain Cannonby was with him. They were going together up to—I forget, I say, the name of the place—where John died, you know. It was nine or ten days' distance from Melbourne, and they had travelled but a day of it. And I suppose," added Mrs. Verner, with tears in her eyes, "that he'd be put into the ground like a dog!"

Lionel, on this score, could give no consolation. He knew not whether the fact might be so, or not. Jan hoisted himself on to the top of a high bureau, and sat in comfort.

"He'd be buried like a dog," repeated Mrs. Verner. "What do they know about parsons and consecrated ground out there? Cannonby buried him, he says, and then he went back to Melbourne to carry the tidings to Sibylla."

"Sibylla? Was Sibylla not with him when he died?" exclaimed Lionel.

"It seems not. It's sure not, in fact, by the letters. You can read them, Lionel. There's one from her and one from Captain Cannonby."

"It's not likely they'd drag Sibylla up to the diggings," interposed Jan.

"And yet almost as unlikely that her husband would leave her alone in such a place as Melbourne appears to be," dissented Lionel.

"She was not left alone," said Mrs. Verner. "If you'd read the letters, Lionel, you would see. She stayed in Melbourne with a family: friends, I think she says, of Captain Cannonby's. She has written for money to be sent out to her by the first ship, that she may pay her passage home again."

This item of intelligence astonished Lionel more than any other.

"Written for money to be sent out for her passage home!" he reiterated. "Has she no money?"

Mrs. Verner looked at him. "They accuse me of forgetting things in my sleep, Lionel; but I think you must be growing worse than I am. Poor Fred told us in his last letter that he had been robbed of his desk, and that it had got his money in it."

"But I did not suppose it contained all—that they were reduced so low as for his wife to have no money left for a passage. What will she do there until some can be got out?"

"If she is with comfortable folks, they'd not turn her out," cried Jan.

Lionel took up the letters, and ran his eyes over them. They told him little else of the facts; though more of the details. It appeared to have taken place pretty much as Mrs. Verner said. The closing part of Sibylla's letter ran as follows:—

"After we wrote to you, Fred met Captain Cannonby. You must remember, dear aunt, how often Fred would speak of him. Captain Cannonby has relatives out here, people in very good position—if people can be said to be in a position at all in such a horrid place. We knew Captain Cannonby had come over, but thought he was at the Bendigo diggings. However, Fred met him; and he was very civil and obliging. He got us apartments in the best hotel—one of the very places that had refused us, saying they were crowded. Fred seemed to grow a trifle better, and it was decided that they should go to the place where John died, and try to get particulars about his money, etc., which in Melbourne we could hear nothing of. Indeed, nobody seemed to know even John's name. Captain Cannonby (who has really made money here in some way—trading, he says—and expects to make a good deal more) agreed to go with Fred. Then Fred told me of the loss of his desk and money, his bills of credit, and that; whatever the term may be. It was stolen from the quay, the day we arrived, and he had never been able to hear of it; but, while there seemed a chance of finding it, he would not let me know the ill news. Of course, with this loss upon us, there was all the more necessity for our getting John's money as speedily as might be. Captain Cannonby introduced me to his relatives, the Eyres, told them my husband wanted to go up the country for a short while, and they invited me to stay with them. And here I am, and very kind they are to me in this dreadful trouble.

"Aunt Verner, I thought I should have died when, a day or two after they started, I saw Captain Cannonby come back alone, with a long, sorrowful face. I seemed to know in a moment what had happened; I had thought at the time they started that Fred was too ill to go. I said to him, 'My husband is dead!' and he confessed that it was so. He had been taken ill at the end of the first day, and did not live many hours.

"I can't tell you any more, dear Aunt Verner; I am too sick and ill, and if I filled ten sheets with the particulars, it would not alter the dreadful facts. I want to come home to you; I know you will receive me, and let me live with you always. I have not any money. Please send me out sufficient to bring me home by the first ship that sails. I don't care for any of the things we brought out; they may stop here or be lost in the sea, for all the difference it will make to me: I only want to come home. Captain Cannonby says he will take upon himself now to look after John's money, and transmit it to us, if he can get it.

"Mrs. Eyre has just come in. She desires me to say that they are taking every care of me, and are all happy to have me with them: she says I am to tell you that her own daughters are about my age. It is all true, dear aunt, and they are exceedingly kind to me. They seem to have plenty of money, are intimate with the governor's family, and with what they call the good society of the colony. When I think what my position would have been now had I not met with them, I grow quite frightened.

"I have to write to papa, and must close this. I have requested Captain Cannonby to write to you himself, and give you particulars about the last moments of Frederick. Send me the money without delay, dear aunt. The place is hateful to me now he is gone, and I'd rather be dead than stop in it.

"Your affectionate and afflicted niece,

"SIBYLLA MASSINGBIRD."

Lionel folded the letter musingly. "It would almost appear that they had not heard of your son's accession to Verner's Pride," he remarked to Mrs. Verner. "It is not alluded to in any way."

"I think it is sure they had not heard of it," she answered "I remarked so to Mary Tynn. The letters must have been delayed in their passage. Lionel, you will see to the sending out of the money for me."

"Immediately," replied Lionel.

"And when do you come home?"

"Do you mean—do you mean when do I come here?" returned Lionel.

"To be sure I mean it. It is your home. Verner's Pride is your home, Lionel, now; not mine. It has been yours this three or four months past, only we did not know it. You must come home to it at once, Lionel."

"I suppose it will be right that I should do so," he answered.

"And I shall be thankful," said Mrs. Verner. "There will be a master once more, and no need to bother me. I have been bothered, Lionel. Mr. Jan,"—turning to the bureau—"it's that which has made me feel ill. One comes to me with some worry or other, and another comes to me: they will come to me. The complaints and tales of that Roy fidget my life out."

"I shall discharge Roy at once, Mrs. Verner."

Mrs. Verner made a deprecatory movement of the hands, as much as to say that it was no business of hers. "Lionel, I have only one request to make of you: never speak of the estate to me again, or of anything connected with its management. You are its sole master, and can do as you please. Shall you turn me out?"

Lionel's face flushed. "No, Mrs. Verner," he almost passionately answered. "You could not think so."

"You have the right. Had Fred come home, he would have had the right. But I'd hardly reconcile myself to any other house how."

"It is a right which I should never exercise," said Lionel.

"I shall mostly keep my room," resumed Mrs. Verner; "perhaps wholly keep it: and Mary Tynn will wait upon me. The servants will be yours, Lionel. In fact, they are yours; not mine. What a blessing! to know that I may be at peace from henceforth: that the care will be upon another's shoulders! My poor Fred! My dear sons! I little thought I was taking leave of them both for the last time!"

Jan jumped off his bureau. Now that the brunt of the surprise was over, and plans began to be discussed, Jan bethought himself of his impatient sick list, who were doubtlessly wondering at the non-appearance of their doctor. Lionel rose to depart with him.

"But, you should not go," said Mrs. Verner. "In five minutes I vacate this study; resign it to you. This change will give you plenty to do, Lionel."

"I know it will, dear Mrs. Verner. I shall be back soon, but I must hasten to acquaint my mother."

"You will promise not to go away again, Lionel. It is your lawful home, remember."

"I shall not go away again," was Lionel's answer; and Mrs. Verner breathed freely. To be emancipated from what she had regarded as the great worry of life, was felt to be a relief. Now she could eat and sleep all day, and never need be asked a single question, or hear whether the outside world had stopped, or was going on still.

"You will just pen a few words for me to Sibylla, Lionel," she called out. "I am past much writing now."

"If it be necessary that I should," he coldly replied.

"And send them with the remittance," concluded Mrs. Verner. "You will know how much to send. Tell Sibylla that Verner's Pride is no longer mine, and I cannot invite her to it. It would hardly be the—the thing for a young girl, and she's little better, to be living here with you all day long, and I always shut up in my room. Would it?"

Lionel somewhat haughtily shrugged his shoulders. "Scarcely," he answered.

"She must go to her sisters, of course. Poor girl! what a thing it seems to have to return to her old house again!"

Jan put in his head. "I thought you said you were coming, Lionel?"

"So I am—this instant." And they departed together: encountering Mr. Bitterworth in the road.

He grasped hold of Lionel in much excitement.

"Is it true—what people are saying? That you have come into Verner's Pride?"

"Quite true," replied Lionel. And he gave Mr. Bitterworth a summary of the facts.

"Now look there!" cried Mr. Bitterworth, who was evidently deeply impressed; "it's of no use to try to go against honest right: sooner or later it will triumph. In your case, it has come wonderfully soon. I told my old friend that the Massingbirds had no claim to Verner's Pride; that if they were exalted to it, over your head, it would not prosper them—not, poor fellows, that I thought of their death. May you remain in undisturbed possession of it, Lionel! May your children succeed to it after you!"

Lionel and Jan continued their road. But they soon parted company, for Jan turned off to his patients. Lionel made the best of his way to Deerham Court. In the room he entered, steadily practising, was Lucy Tempest, alone. She turned her head to see who it was, and at the sight of Lionel started up in alarm.

"What is it? Why are you back?" she exclaimed. "Has the train broken down?"

Lionel smiled at her vehemence; at her crimsoned countenance; at her unbounded astonishment altogether.

"The train has not broken down, I trust, Lucy. I did not go with it. Do you know where my mother is?"

"She is gone out with Decima."

He felt a temporary disappointment; the news, he was aware, would be so deeply welcome to Lady Verner. Lucy stood regarding him, waiting the solution of the mystery.

"What should you say, Lucy, if I tell you Deerham is not going to get rid of me at all?"

"I do not understand you," replied Lucy, colouring with surprise and emotion. "Do you mean that you are going to remain here?"

"Not here—in this house. That would be a calamity for you."

Lucy looked as if it would be anything but a calamity.

"You are as bad as our French mistress at the rectory," she said. "She would never tell us anything; she used to make us guess."

Her words were interrupted by the breaking out of the church bells: a loud peal, telling of joy. A misgiving crossed Lionel that the news had got wind, and that some officious person had been setting on the bells to ring for him, in honour of his succession. The exceeding bad taste of the proceeding—should it prove so—called a flush of anger to his brow. His inheritance had cost Mrs. Verner her son.

The suspicion was confirmed. One of the servants, who had been to the village, came running in at this juncture with open mouth, calling out that Mr. Lionel had come into his own, and that the bells were ringing for it. Lucy Tempest heard the words, and turned to Lionel.

"It is so, Lucy," he said, answering the look. "Verner's Pride is at last mine. But—"

She grew strangely excited. Lionel could see her heart beat—could see the tears of emotion gather in her eyes.

"I am so glad!" she said in a low, heartfelt tone. "I thought it would be so, sometime. Have you found the codicil?"

"Hush, Lucy! Before you express your gladness, you must learn that sad circumstances are mixed with it. The codicil has not been found; but Frederick Massingbird has died."

Lucy shook her head. "He had no right to Verner's Pride, and I did not like him. I am sorry, though, for himself, that he is dead. And—Lionel—you will never go away now?"

"I suppose not: to live."

"I am so glad! I may tell you that I am glad, may I not?"

She half timidly held out her hand as she spoke. Lionel took it between both of his, toying with it as tenderly as he had ever toyed with Sibylla's. And his low voice took a tone which was certainly not that of hatred, as he bent towards her.

"I am glad also, Lucy. The least pleasant part of my recent projected departure was the constantly remembered fact that I was about to put a distance of many miles between myself and you. It grew all too palpable towards the last."

Lucy laughed and drew away her hand, her radiant countenance falling before the gaze of Lionel.

"So you will be troubled with me yet, you see, Miss Lucy," he added, in a lighter tone, as he left her and strode off with a step that might have matched Jan's, on his way to ask the bells whether they were not ashamed of themselves.



CHAPTER XXXI.

ROY EATING HUMBLE PIE.

And so the laws of right and justice had eventually triumphed, and Lionel Verner took possession of his own. Mrs. Verner took possession of her own—her chamber; all she was ever again likely to take possession of at Verner's Pride. She had no particular ailment, unless heaviness could be called an ailment, and steadily refused any suggestion of Jan's.

"You'll go off in a fit," said plain Jan to her.

"Then I must go," replied Mrs. Verner. "I can't submit to be made wretched with your medical and surgical remedies, Mr. Jan. Old people should be let alone, to doze away their days in peace."

"As good give some old people poison outright, as let them always doze," remonstrated Jan.

"You'd like me to live sparingly—to starve myself, in short—and you'd like me to take exercise!" returned Mrs. Verner. "Wouldn't you, now?"

"It would add ten years to your life," said Jan.

"I dare say! It's of no use your coming preaching to me, Mr. Jan. Go and try your eloquence upon others. I always have had enough to eat, and I hope I always shall. And as to my getting about, or walking, I can't. When folks come to be my size, it's cruel to want them to do it."

Mrs. Verner was nodding before she had well spoken the last words, and Jan said no more. You may have met with some such case in your own experience.

When the news of Lionel Verner's succession fell upon Roy, the bailiff, he could have gnashed his teeth in very vexation. Had he foreseen what was to happen he would have played his cards so differently. It had not entered into the head-piece of Roy to reflect that Frederick Massingbird might die. Scarcely had it that he could die. A man, young and strong, what was likely to take him off? John had died, it was true; but John's death had been a violent one. Had Roy argued the point at all—which he did not, for it had never occurred to his mind—he might have assumed that because John had died, Fred was the more likely to live. It is a somewhat rare case for two brothers to be cut down in their youth and prime, one closely following upon the other.

Roy lived in a cottage standing by itself, a little beyond Clay Lane, but not so far off as the gamekeeper's. On the morning when the bells had rung out—to the surprise and vexation of Lionel—Roy happened to be at home. Roy never grudged himself holiday when it could be devoted to the benefit of his wife. A negative benefit she may have thought it, since it invariably consisted in what Roy called a "blowing of her up."

Mrs. Roy had heard that the Australian mail was in. But the postman had not been to their door, therefore no letter could have arrived for them from Luke. A great many mails, as it appeared to Mrs. Roy, had come in with the like result. That Luke had been murdered, as his master, John Massingbird, had been before him, was the least she feared. Her fears and troubles touching Luke were great; they were never at rest; and her tears fell frequently. All of which excited the ire of Roy.

She sat in a rocking-chair in the kitchen—a chair which had been new when the absent Luke was a baby, and which was sure to be the seat chosen by Mrs. Roy when she was in a mood to indulge any passing tribulation. The kitchen opened to the road, as the kitchens of many of the dwellings did open to it; a parlour was on the right, which was used only on the grand occasion of receiving visitors; and the stairs, leading to two rooms above, ascended from the kitchen. Here she sat, silently wiping away her dropping tears with a red cotton pocket-handkerchief. Roy was not in the sweetest possible temper himself that morning, so, of course, he turned it upon her.

"There you be, a-snivelling as usual! I'd have a bucket always at my feet, if I was you. It might save the trouble of catching rain-water."

"If the letter-man had got anything for us, he'd have been round here an hour ago," responded Mrs. Roy, bursting into unrestrained sobs.

Now, this happened to be the very grievance that was affecting the gentleman's temper—the postman's not having gone there. They had heard that the Australian mail was in. Not that he was actuated by any strong paternal feelings—such sentiments did not prey upon Mr. Roy. The hearing or the not hearing from his son would not thus have disturbed his equanimity. He took it for granted that Luke was alive somewhere—probably getting on—and was content to wait until himself or a letter should turn up. The one whom he had been expecting to hear from was his new master, Mr. Massingbird. He had fondly indulged the hope that credential letters would arrive for him, confirming him in his place of manager; he believed that this mail would inevitably bring them, as the last mails had not. Hence he had stayed at home to receive the postman. But the postman had not come, and it gave Roy a pain in his temper.

"They be a-coming back, that's what it is," was the conclusion he arrived at, when his disappointment had a little subsided. "Perhaps they might have come by this very ship! I wonder if it brings folks as well as letters?"

"I know he must be dead!" sobbed Mrs. Roy.

"He's dead as much as you be," retorted Roy. "He's a-making his fortune, and he'll come home after it—that's what Luke's a-doing. For all you know he may be come too."

The words appeared to startle Mrs. Roy; she looked up, and he saw that her face had gone white with terror.

"Why! what does ail you?" cried he, in wonder. "Be you took crazy?"

"I don't want him to come home," she replied in an awe-struck whisper. "Roy, I don't want him to."

"You don't want to be anything but a idiot," returned Roy, with supreme contempt.

"But I'd like to hear from him," she wailed, swaying herself to and fro. "I'm always a-dreaming of it."

"You'll just dream a bit about getting the dinner ready," commanded Roy morosely; "that's what you'll dream about now. I said I'd have biled pork and turnips, and nicely you be a-getting on with it. Hark ye! I'm a-going now, but I shall be in at twelve, and if it ain't ready, mind your skin!"

He swung open the kitchen door just in time to hear the church bells burst out with a loud and joyous peal. It surprised Roy. In quiet Deerham, such sounds were not very frequent.

"What's up now?" cried Roy savagely. Not that the abstract fact of the bells ringing was of any moment to him, but he was in a mood to be angry with everything. "Here, you!" continued he, seizing hold of a boy who was running by, "what be them bells a-clattering for?"

Brought to thus summarily, the boy had no resource but to stop. It was a young gentleman whom you have had the pleasure of meeting before—Master Dan Duff. So fast had he been flying, that a moment or two elapsed ere he could get breath to speak.

The delay did not tend to soothe his capturer; and he administered a slight shake. "Can't you speak, Dan Duff? Don't you see who it is that's a-asking of you? What be them bells a-working for?"

"Please, sir, it's for Mr. Lionel Verner."

The answer took Roy somewhat aback. He knew—as everybody else knew—that Mr. Lionel Verner's departure from Deerham was fixed for that day; but to believe that the bells would ring out a peal of joy on that account was a staggerer even to Roy's ears. Dan Duff found himself treated to another shake, together with a sharp reprimand.

"So they be a-ringing for him!" panted he. "There ain't no call to shake my inside out of me for saying so. Mr. Lionel have got Verner's Pride at last, and he ain't a-going away at all, and the bells be a-ringing for it. Mother have sent me to tell the gamekeeper. She said he'd sure to give me a penny, if I was the first to tell him."