He spoke the last words significantly, lowering his voice. Lionel looked at him.

"She paid me a mysterious visit at the vicarage the night before the start," continued the clergyman. "A very mysterious visit, indeed, taken in conjunction with her words. I was in my study, reading by candle-light, when somebody came tapping at the glass door, and stole in. It was Mrs. Roy. She was in a state of tremor, as I have heard it said she appeared the night the inquiry was held at Verner's Pride, touching the death of Rachel Frost. She spoke to me in ambiguous terms of a journey she was about to take—that she should probably be away for her whole life—and then she proceeded to speak of that night."

"The night of the inquiry?" echoed Lionel.

"The night of the inquiry—that is, the night of the accident," returned Mr. Bourne. "She said she wished to confide a secret to me, which she had not liked to touch upon before, but which she could not leave the place without confiding to some one responsible, who might use it in case of need. The secret she proceeded to tell me was—that it was Frederick Massingbird who had been quarrelling with Rachel that night by the Willow Pool. She could swear it to me, she said, if necessary."

"But—if that were true—why did she not proclaim it at the time?" asked Lionel, after a pause.

"It was all she said. And she would not be questioned. 'In case o' need, sir, in case anybody else should ever be brought up for it, tell 'em that Dinah Roy asserted to you with her last breath in Deerham, that Mr. Fred Massingbird was the one that was with Rachel.' Those were the words she used to me; I dotted them down after she left. As I tell you, she would not be questioned, and glided out again almost immediately."

"Was she wandering in her mind?"

"I think not. She spoke with an air of truth. When I heard of the flight of the converts the next morning, I could only conclude that Mrs. Roy had intended to be amongst them. But now, understand me, Mr. Verner, although I have told you this, I have not mentioned it to another living soul. Neither do I intend to do so. It can do no good to reap up the sad tale; whether Frederick Massingbird was or was not with Rachel that night; whether he was in any way guilty, or was purely innocent, it boots not to inquire now."

"It does not," warmly replied Lionel. "You have done well. Let us bury Mrs. Roy's story between us, and forget it, so far as we can."

They parted. Lionel took his way to Deerham Court, absorbed in thought. His own strong impression had been, that Mr. Fred Massingbird was the black sheep with regard to Rachel.



CHAPTER XLIII.

LIONEL'S PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS.

Lady Verner, like many more of us, found that misfortunes do not come singly. Coeval almost with that great misfortune, Lionel's marriage—at any rate, coeval with his return to Verner's Pride with his bride—another vexation befell Lady Verner. Had Lady Verner found real misfortunes to contend with, it is hard to say how she would have borne them. Perhaps Lionel's marriage to Sibylla was a real misfortune; but this second vexation assuredly was not—at any rate to Lady Verner.

Some women—and Lady Verner was one—are fond of scheming and planning. Whether it be the laying out of a flower-bed, or the laying out of a marriage, they must plan and project. Disappointment with regard to her own daughter—for Decima most unqualifyingly disclaimed any match-making on her own score—Lady Verner had turned her hopes in this respect on Lucy Tempest. She deemed that she should be ill-fulfilling the responsibilities of her guardianship, unless when Colonel Tempest returned to England, she could present Lucy to him a wife, or, at least, engaged to be one. Many a time now did she unavailingly wish that Lionel had chosen Lucy, instead of her whom he had chosen. Although—and mark how we estimate things by comparison—when, in the old days, Lady Verner had fancied Lionel was growing to like Lucy, she had told him emphatically it "would not do." Why would it not do? Because, in the estimation of Lady Verner, Lucy Tempest was less desirable in a social point of view than the Earl of Elmsley's daughter, and upon the latter lady had been fixed her hopes for Lionel.

All that was past and gone. Lady Verner had seen the fallacy of sublunary hopes and projects. Lady Mary Elmsley was rejected—Lionel had married in direct defiance of everybody's advice—and Lucy was open to offers. Open to offers, as Lady Verner supposed; but she was destined to find herself unpleasantly disappointed.

One came forward with an offer to her. And that was no other than the Earl of Elmsley's son, Viscount Garle. A pleasant man, of eight-and-twenty years; and he was often at Lady Verner's. He had been intimate there a long while, going in and out as unceremoniously as did Lionel or Jan. Lady Verner and Decima could tell a tale that no one else suspected. How, in the years gone by—some four or five years ago now—he had grown to love Decima with his whole heart; and Decima had rejected him. In spite of his sincere love; of the advantages of the match; of the angry indignation of Lady Verner; Decima had steadfastly rejected him. For some time Lord Garle would not take the rejection; but one day, when my lady was out, Decima spoke with him privately for five minutes, and from that hour Lord Garle had known there was no hope; had been content to begin there and then, and strive to love her only as a sister. The little episode was never known; Decima and Lady Verner had kept counsel, and Lord Garle had not told tales of himself. Next to Lionel, Lady Verner liked Lord Garle better than any one—ten times better than she liked unvarnished Jan; and he was allowed the run of the house as though he had been its son. The first year of Lucy's arrival—the year of Lionel's illness, Lord Garle had been away from the neighbourhood; but somewhere about the time of Sibylla's return, he had come back to it. Seeing a great deal of Lucy, as he necessarily did, being so much at Lady Verner's, he grew to esteem and love her. Not with the same love he had borne for Decima—a love, such as that, never comes twice in a lifetime—but with a love sufficiently warm, notwithstanding. And he asked her to become his wife.

There was triumph for Lady Verner! Next to Decima—and all hope of that was dead for ever—she would like Lord Garle to marry Lucy. A real triumph, the presenting her to Colonel Tempest on his return, my Lady Viscountess Garle! In the delight of her heart she betrayed something of this to Lucy.

"But I am not going to marry him, Lady Verner," objected Lucy.

"You are not going to marry him, Lucy? He confided to me the fact of his intention this morning before he spoke to you. He has spoken to you, has he not?"

"Yes," replied Lucy; "but I cannot accept him."

"You—cannot! What are you talking of?" cried Lady Verner.

"Please not to be angry, Lady Verner! I could not marry Lord Garle."

Lady Verner's lips grew pale. "And pray why can you not?" she demanded.

"I—don't like him," stammered Lucy.

"Not like him!" repeated Lady Verner. "Why, what can there be about Lord Garle that you young ladies do not like?" she wondered; her thoughts cast back to the former rejection by Decima. "He is good-looking, he is sensible; there's not so attractive a man in all the county, Lionel Verner excepted."

Lucy's face turned to a fiery glow. "Had I known he was going to ask me, I would have requested him not to do so beforehand, as my refusal has displeased you," she simply said. "I am sorry you should be vexed with me, Lady Verner."

"It appears to me that nothing but vexation is to be the portion of my life!" uttered Lady Verner. "Thwarted—thwarted always!—on all sides. First the one, then the other—nothing but crosses and vexations! What did you say to Lord Garle?"

"I told Lord Garle that I could not marry him; that I should never like him well enough—for he said, if I did not care for him now, I might later. But I told him no; it was impossible. I like him very well as a friend, but that is all."

"Why don't you like him?" repeated Lady Verner.

"I don't know," whispered Lucy, standing before Lady Verner like a culprit, her eyes cast down, and her eyelashes resting on her hot crimsoned face.

"Do you both mean to make yourselves into old maids, you and Decima?" reiterated the angry Lady Verner. "A pretty pair of you I shall have on my hands! I never was so annoyed in all my life."

Lucy burst into tears. "I wish I could go to papa in India!" she said.

"Do you know what you have rejected?" asked Lady Verner. "You would have been a peeress of England. His father will not live for ever."

"But I should not care to be a peeress," sobbed Lucy. "And I don't like him."

"Mamma, please do not say any more," pleaded Decima. "Lucy is not to blame. If she does not like Lord Garle she could not accept him."

"Of course she is not to blame—according to you, Miss Verner! You were not to blame, were you, when you rejected—some one we knew of? Not the least doubt that you will take her part! Young Bitterworth wished to have proposed to you; you sent him away—as you send all—and refuse to tell me your motive! Very dutiful you are, Decima!"

Decima turned away her pale face. She began to think Lucy would do better without her advocacy than with it.

"I cannot allow it to end thus," resumed Lady Verner to Lucy. "You must reconsider your determination and recall Lord Garle."

The words frightened Lucy.

"I never can—I never can, Lady Verner!" she cried. "Please not to press it; it is of no use."

"I must press it," replied Lady Verner. "I cannot allow you to throw away your future prospects in this childish manner. How should I answer for it to Colonel Tempest?"

She swept out of the room as she concluded, and Lucy, in an uncontrollable fit of emotion, threw herself on the bosom of Decima, and sobbed there. Decima hushed her to her soothingly, stroking her hair from her forehead with a fond gesture.

"What is it that has grieved you lately, Lucy?" she gently asked. "I am sure you have been grieving. I have watched you. Gay as you appear to have been, it is a false gaiety, seen only by fits and starts."

Lucy moved her face from the view of Decima. "Oh, Decima! if I could but go back to papa!" was all she murmured. "If I could but go away, and be with papa!"

This little episode had taken place the day that Lionel Verner and his wife returned. On the following morning Lady Verner renewed the contest with Lucy. And they were deep in it—at least my lady was, for Lucy's chief part was only a deprecatory silence, when Lionel arrived at Deerham Court, to pay that visit to his mother which you have heard of.

"I insist upon it, Lucy, that you recall your unqualified denial," Lady Verner was saying. "If you will not accept Lord Garle immediately, at any rate take time for consideration. I will inform Lord Garle that you do it by my wish."

"I cannot," replied Lucy in a firm, almost a vehement tone. "I—you must not be angry with me, Lady Verner—indeed, I beg your pardon for saying it—but I will not."

"How dare you, Lucy—"

Her ladyship stopped at the sudden opening of the door, turning angrily to see what caused the interruption. Her servant appeared.

"Mr. Verner, my lady."

How handsome he looked as he came forward! Tall, noble, commanding. Never more so; never so much so in Lucy's sight. Poor Lucy's heart was in her mouth, as the saying runs, and her pulses quickened to a pang. She did not know of his return.

He bent to kiss his mother. He turned and shook hands with Lucy. He looked gay, animated, happy. A joyous bridegroom, beyond doubt.

"So you have reached home, Lionel?" said Lady Verner.

"At ten last night. How well you are looking, mother mine!"

"I am flushed just now," was the reply of Lady Verner, her accent a somewhat sharp one from the remembrance of the vexation which had given her the flush. "How is Paris looking? Have you enjoyed yourself?"

"Paris is looking hot and dusty, and we have enjoyed ourselves much," replied Lionel. He answered in the plural, you observe; my lady had put the question in the singular. Where is Decima?"

"Decima is sure to be at some work or other for Jan," was the answer, the asperity of Lady Verner's tone not decreasing. "He turns the house nearly upside down with his wants. Now a pan of broth must be made for some wretched old creature; now a jug of beef tea; now a bran poultice must be got; now some linen cut up for bandages. Jan's excuse is that he can't get anything done at Dr. West's. If he is doctor to the parish, he need not be purveyor; but you may just as well speak to a post as speak to Jan. What do you suppose he did the other day? Those improvident Kellys had their one roomful of things taken from them by their landlord. Jan went there—the woman's ill with a bad breast, or something—and found her lying on the bare boards; nothing to cover her, not a saucepan left to boil a drop of water. Off he comes here at the pace of a steam engine, got an old blanket and pillow from Catherine, and a tea-kettle from the kitchen. Now, Lionel, would you believe what I am going to tell you? No! No one would. He made the pillow and blanket into a bundle, and walked off with it under his arm; the kettle—never so much as a piece of paper wrapped round it—in his other hand! I felt ready to faint with shame when I saw him crossing the road opposite, that spectacle, to get to Clay Lane, the kettle held out a yard before him to keep the black off his clothes. He never could have been meant to be your brother and my son!"

Lucy laughed at the recollection. She had had the pleasure of beholding the spectacle. Lionel laughed now at the description. Their mirth did not please Lady Verner. She was serious in her complaint.

"Lionel, you would not have liked it yourself. Fancy his turning out of Verner's Pride in that guise, and encountering visitors! I don't know how it is, but there's some deficiency in Jan; something wanting. You know he generally chooses to come here by the back door: this day, because he had got the black kettle in his hand like a travelling tinker, he must go out by the front. He did! It saved him a few steps, and he went out without a blush. Out of my house, Lionel! Nobody ever lived, I am certain, who possessed so little innate notion of the decencies of life as Jan. Had he met a carriage full of visitors in the courtyard, he would have swung the kettle back on his arm, and gone up to shake hands with them. I had the nightmare that night, Lionel. I dreamt a tall giant was pursuing me, seeking to throw some great machine at me, made of tea-kettles."

"Jan is an odd fellow," assented Lionel.

"The worst is, you can't bring him to see, himself, what is proper or improper," resumed Lady Verner. "He has no sense of the fitness of things. He would go as unblushingly through the village with that black kettle held out before him, as he would if it were her Majesty's crown, borne on a velvet cushion."

"I am not sure but the crown would embarrass Jan more than the kettle," said Lionel, laughing still.

"Oh, I dare say; it would be just like him. Have you heard of the disgraceful flitting away of some of the inhabitants here to go after the Mormons?" added my lady.

"Jan has been telling me of it. What with one thing and another, Deerham will rise into notoriety. Nancy has gone from Verner's Pride."

"Poor deluded woman!" ejaculated Lady Verner.

"There's a story told in the village about that Peckaby's wife—Decima can tell it best, though. I wonder where she is?"

Lucy rose. "I will go and find her, Lady Verner."

No sooner had she quitted the room, than Lady Verner turned to Lionel, her manner changing. She began to speak rapidly, with some emotion.

"You observed that I looked well, Lionel. I told you I was flushed. The flush was caused by vexation, by anger. Not a week passes but something or other occurs to annoy me. I shall be worried into my grave."

"What has happened?" inquired Lionel.

"It is about Lucy Tempest. Here she is, upon my hands, and of course I am responsible. She has no mother, and I am responsible to Colonel Tempest and to my own conscience for her welfare. She will soon be twenty years of age—though I am sure nobody would believe it, to look at her—and it is time that her settlement in life should, at all events, be thought of. But now, look how things turn out! Lord Garle—than whom a better parti could not be wished—has fallen in love with her. He made her an offer yesterday, and she won't have him."

"Indeed!" replied Lionel, constrained to say something, but wishing Lady Verner would entertain him with any other topic.

"We had quite a scene here yesterday. Indeed, it has been renewed this morning, and your coming in interrupted it. I tell her that she must have him: at any rate, must take time to consider the advantages of the offer. She obstinately protests that she will not. I cannot think what can be her motive for rejection; almost any girl in the county would jump at Lord Garle."

"I suppose so," returned Lionel, pulling at a hole in his glove.

"I must get you to speak to her, Lionel. Ask her why she declines. Show her—"

"I speak to her!" interrupted Lionel in a startled tone. "I cannot speak to her about it, mother. It is no business of mine."

"Good heavens, Lionel! are you going to turn disobedient?—And in so trifling-a matter as this!—trifling so far as you are concerned. Were it of vital importance to you, you might run counter to me; it is only what I should expect."

This was a stab at his marriage. Lionel replied by disclaiming any influence over Miss Tempest. "Where your arguments have failed, mine would not be likely to succeed."

"Then you are mistaken, Lionel. I am certain that you hold a very great influence over Lucy. I observed it first when you were ill, when she and Decima were so much with you. She has betrayed it in a hundred little ways; her opinions are formed upon yours; your tastes unconsciously bias hers. It is only natural. She has no brother, and no doubt has learned to regard you as one."

Lionel hoped in his inmost heart that she did regard him only as a brother. Lady Verner continued—

"A word from you may have great effect upon her; and I desire, Lionel, that you will, in your duty to me, undertake that word. Point out to her the advantages of the match; tell her that you speak to her as her father; urge her to accept Lord Garle; or, as I say, not to summarily reject him without consideration, upon the childish plea that she 'does not like him.' She was terribly agitated last night; nearly went into hysterics, Decima tells me, after I left her; all her burden being that she wished she could go away to India."

"Mother—you know how pleased I should be to obey any wish of yours; but this is really not a proper business for me to interfere with," urged Lionel, a red spot upon his cheek.

"Why is it not?" pointedly asked Lady Verner, looking hard at him and waiting for an answer.

"I do not deem it to be so. Neither would Lucy consider my interference justifiable."

"But, Lionel, you take up wrong notions! I wish you to speak in my place, just as if you were her father; in short, acting for her father. As to what Lucy may consider or not consider in the matter, that is of very little consequence. Lucy is so perfectly unsophisticated, so simple in her ideas, that were I to desire my maid Therese to give her a lecture, she would receive it as something proper."

"I should be most unwilling to——"

"Hold your tongue, Lionel. You must do it. Here she is."

"I could not find Decima, Lady Verner," said Lucy, entering. "When I had been all over the house for her, Catherine told me Miss Decima had gone out. She has gone to Clay Lane on some errand for Jan."

"Oh, of course for Jan!" resentfully spoke Lady Verner. "Nothing else, I should think, would take her to Clay Lane. You see, Lionel!"

"There's nothing in Clay Lane that will hurt Decima, mother."

Lady Verner made no reply. She walked to the door, and stood with the handle in her hand, turning round to speak.

"Lucy, I have been acquainting Lionel with this affair between you and Lord Garle. I have requested him to speak to you upon the point; to ascertain your precise grounds of objection, and—so far as he can—to do away with them. Try your best, Lionel."

She quitted the room, leaving them standing opposite each other. Standing like two statues. Lionel's heart smote him. She looked so innocent, so good, in her delicate morning dress, with its gray ribbons and its white lace on the sleeves, open to the small fair arms! Simple as the dress was, it looked, in its exquisite taste, worth ten of Sibylla's elaborate French costumes. Her cheeks were glowing, her hands were trembling, as she stood there in her self-consciousness.

Terribly self-conscious was Lionel. He strove to say something, but in his embarrassment could not get out a single word. The conviction of the grievous fact, that she loved him, went right to his heart in that moment, and seated itself there. Another grievous fact came home to him; that she was more to him than the whole world. However he had pushed the suspicion away from his mind, refused to dwell on it, kept it down, it was all too plain to him now. He had made Sibylla his wife. He stood there, feeling that he loved Lucy above all created things.

He crossed over to her, and laid his hand fondly and gently on her head, as he moved to the door. "May God forgive me, Lucy!" broke from his white and trembling lips. "My own punishment is heavier than yours."

There was no need of further explanation on either side. Each knew that the love of the other was theirs, the punishment keenly bitter, as surely as if a hundred words had told it. Lucy sat down as the door closed behind him, and wondered how she should get through the long dreary life before her.

And Lionel? Lionel went out by Jan's favourite way, the back, and plunged into a dark lane where neither ear nor eye was on him. He uncovered his head, he threw back his coat, he lifted his breath to catch only a gasp of air. The sense of dishonour was stifling him.



CHAPTER XLIV.

FARMER BLOW'S WHITE-TAILED PONY.

Lionel Verner was just in that frame of mind which struggles to be carried out of itself. No matter whether by pleasure or pain, so that it be not that particular pain from which it would fain escape, the mind seeks yearningly to forget itself, to be lifted out anywhere, or by any means, from its trouble. Conscience was doing heavy work with Lionel. He had destroyed his own happiness—that was nothing; he could battle it out, and nobody be the wiser or the worse, save himself; but he had blighted Lucy's. There was the sting that tortured him. A man of sensitively refined organisation, keenly alive to the feelings of others—full of repentant consciousness when wrong was worked through him, he would have given his whole future life and all its benefits, to undo the work of the last few months. Either that he had never met Lucy, or that he had not married Sibylla. Which of those two events he would have preferred to recall, he did not trust himself to think; whatever may have been his faults, he had, until now, believed himself to be a man of honour. It was too late. Give what he would, strive as he would, repent as he would, the ill could neither be undone nor mitigated; it was one of those unhappy things for which there is no redress; they must be borne, as they best can, in patience and silence.

With these thoughts and feelings full upon him, little wonder was there that Lionel Verner, some two hours after quitting Lucy, should turn into Peckaby's shop. Mrs. Peckaby was seated back from the open door, crying, and moaning, and swaying herself about, apparently in terrible pain, physical or mental. Lionel remembered the story of the white donkey, and he stepped in to question her; anything for a minute's divertisement; anything to drown the care that was racking him. There was a subject on which he wished to speak to Roy, and that took him down Clay Lane.

"What's the matter, Mrs. Peckaby?"

Mrs. Peckaby rose from her chair, curtseyed, and sat down again. But for the state of tribulation she was in, she would have remained standing.

"Oh, sir, I have had a upset," she sobbed. "I see the white tail of a pony a-going by, and I thought it might be some'at else. It did give me a turn!"

"What did you think it might be?"

"I thought it might be the tail of a different sort of animal. I be a-going a far journey, sir, and I thought it was, may be, the quadruple come to fetch me. I'm a-going to New Jerusalem on a white donkey."

"So I hear," said Lionel, suppressing a smile, in spite of his heavy heart. "Do you go all the way on the white donkey, Mrs. Peckaby?"

"Sir, that's a matter that's hid from me," answered Mrs. Peckaby. "The gentleman that was sent back to me by Brother Jarrum, hadn't had particulars revealed to him. There's difficulties in the way of a animal on four legs which can't swim, doing it all, that I don't pretend to explain away. I'm content, when the hour comes, sir, to start, and trust. Peckaby, he's awful sinful, sir. Only last evening, when I was saying the quadruple might have mirac'lous parts give to it, like Balum's had in the Bible, Peckaby he jeered, and said he'd like to see Balum's or any other quadruple, set off to swim to America—that he'd find the bottom afore he found the land. I wonder the kitchen ceiling don't drop down upon his head! For myself, sir, I'm rejoiced to trust, as I says; and as soon as the white donkey do come, I shall mount him without fear."

"What do you expect to find at New Jerusalem?" asked Lionel.

"I could sooner tell you, sir, what I don't expect; it 'ud take up less time. There's a'most everything good at New Jerusalem that the world contains—Verner's Pride's a poor place to it, sir—saving your presence for saying so. I could have sat and listened to Brother Jarrum in this here shop for ever, sir, if it hadn't been that the longing was upon me to get there. In this part o' the world we women be poor, cast down, half-famished, miserable slaves; but in New Jerusalem we are the wives of saints, well cared for, and clothed and fed, happy as the day's long, and our own parlours to ourselves, and nobody to interrupt us. Yes, Peckaby, I'm a-telling his honour, Mr. Verner, what's a-waiting for me at New Jerusalem! And the sooner I'm on my road to it, the better."

The conclusion was addressed to Peckaby himself. Peckaby had just come in from the forge, grimed and dirty. He touched his hair to Lionel, an amused expression playing on his face. In point of fact, this New Jerusalem vision was affording the utmost merriment to Peckaby and a few more husbands. Peckaby had come home to his tea, which meal it was the custom of Deerham to enjoy about three o'clock. He saw no signs of its being in readiness; and, but for the presence of Mr. Verner, might probably have expressed his opinion demonstratively upon the point. Peckaby, of late, appeared to have changed his nature and disposition. From being a timid man, living under wife-thraldom, he had come to exercise thraldom over her. How far Mrs. Peckaby's state of low spirits, into which she was generally sunk, may have explained this, nobody knew.

"I have had a turn, Peckaby. I caught sight of a white tail a-going by, and I thought it might be the quadruple a-coming for me. I was shook, I can tell you. 'Twas more nor an hour ago, and I've been able to do nothing since, but sit here and weep; I couldn't redd up after that."

"Warn't it the quadrepid?" asked Peckaby in a mocking tone.

"No, it weren't," she moaned. "It were nothing but that white pony of Farmer Blow's."

"Him, was it," said Peckaby, with affected scorn. "He is in the forge now, he is; a-having his shoes changed, and his tail trimmed."

"I'd give a shilling to anybody as 'ud cut his tail off;" angrily rejoined Mrs. Peckaby. "A-deceiving of me, and turning my inside all of a quake! Oh, I wish it 'ud come! The white donkey as is to bear me to New Jerusalem!"

"Don't you wish her joy of her journey, sir?" cried the man respectfully, a twinkle in his eye, while she rocked herself too and fro. "She have got a bran new gownd laid up in a old apron upstairs, ready for the start. She, and a lot more to help her, set on and made it in a afternoon, for fear the white donkey should arrive immediate. I asks her, sir, how much back the gownd'll have left in him, by the time she have rode from here to New Jerusalem."

"Peckaby, you are a mocker!" interposed his lady, greatly exasperated. "Remember the forty-two as was eat up by bears when they mocked at Elisher!"

"Mrs. Peckaby," said Lionel, keeping his countenance, "don't you think you would have made more sure of the benefits of the New Jerusalem, had you started with the rest, instead of depending upon the arrival of the white donkey?"

"They started without her, sir," cried the man, laughing from ear to ear. "They give her the slip, while she were a-bed and asleep."

"It were revealed to Brother Jarrum so to do, sir," she cried eagerly. "Don't listen to him. Brother Jarrum as much meant me to go, sir, and I as much thought to go, as I mean to go to my bed this night—always supposing the white donkey don't come," she broke off in a different voice.

"Why did you not go, then?" demanded Lionel.

"I'll tell you about it, sir. Me and Brother Jarrum was on the best of terms—which it's a real gentleman he was, and never said a word nor gave a look as could offend me. I didn't know the night fixed for the start; and Brother Jarrum didn't know it; in spite of Peckaby's insinuations. On that last night, which it was Tuesday, not a soul came near the place but that pale lady where Dr. West attended. She stopped a minute or two, and then Brother Jarrum goes out, and says he might be away all the evening. Well, he was; but he came in again; I can be on my oath he did; and I give him his candle and wished him a good-night. After that, sir, I never heard nothing till I got up in the morning. The first thing I see was his door wide open, and the bed not slept in. And the next thing I heard was, that the start had took place; they a-walking to Heartburg, and taking the train there. You might just have knocked me down with a puff of wind."

"Such a howling and screeching followed on, sir," put in Peckaby. "I were at the forge, and it reached all the way to our ears, over there. Chuff, he thought as the place had took fire and the missis was a-burning."

"But it didn't last; it didn't last," repeated Mrs. Peckaby. "Thanks be offered up for it, it didn't last, or I should ha' been in my coffin afore the day were out! A gentleman came to me: a Brother he were, sent express by Brother Jarrum; and had walked afoot all the way from Heartburg. It had been revealed to Brother Jarrum, he said, that they were to start that partic'lar night, and that I was to be left behind special. A higher mission was—What was the word? resigned?—no—reserved—reserved for me, and I was to be conveyed special on a quadruple, which was a white donkey. I be to keep myself in readiness, sir, always a-looking out for the quadruple's coming and stopping afore the door."

Lionel leaned against the counter, and went into a burst of laughter. The woman told it so quaintly, with such perfect good faith in the advent of the white donkey! She did not much like the mirth. As to that infidel Peckaby, he indulged in sundry mocking doubts, which were, to say the least of them, very mortifying to a believer.

"What's your opinion, sir?" she suddenly asked of Lionel.

"Well," said Lionel, "my opinion—as you wish for it—Would incline to the suspicion that your friend, Brother Jarrum, deceived you. That he invented the fable of the white donkey to keep you quiet while he and the rest got clear off."

Mrs. Peckaby Went into a storm of shrieking sobs. "It couldn't be! it couldn't be! Oh, sir, you be as cruel as the rest! Why should Brother Jarrum take the others, and not take me?"

"That is Brother Jarrum's affair," replied Lionel. "I only say it looks like it."

"I telled Brother Jarrum, the very day afore the start took place, that if he took off my wife, I'd follor him on and beat every bone to smash as he'd got in his body," interposed Peckaby, glancing at Lionel with a knowing smile. "I did, sir. Her was out"—jerking his black thumb at his wife—"and I caught Brother Jarrum in his own room and shut the door on us both, and there I telled him. He knew I meant it, too, and he didn't like the look of a iron bar I happened to have in my hand. I saw that. Other wives' husbands might do as they liked; but I warn't a-going to have mine deluded off by them Latter Day Saints. Were I wrong, sir?"

"I do not think you were," answered Lionel.

"I'd Latter Day 'em! and saint 'em too, if I had my will!" continued wrathful Peckaby. "Arch-deceiving villuns!"

"Well, good-day, Mrs. Peckaby," said Lionel, moving to the door. "I would not spend too much time were I you, looking out for the white donkey."

"It'll come! it'll come!" retorted Mrs. Peckaby, in an ecstasy of joy, removing her hands from her ears, where she had clapped them during Peckaby's heretical speech. "I am proud, sir, to know as it'll come, in spite of opinions contrairey and Peckaby's wickedness; and I'm proud to be always a-looking out for it."

"This is never it, is it, drawing up to the door now?" cried Lionel, with gravity.

Something undoubtedly was curveting and prancing before the door; something with a white flowing tail. Mrs. Peckaby caught one glimpse, and bounded from her seat, her chest panting, her nostrils working. The signs betrayed how implicit was the woman's belief; how entirely it had taken hold of her.

Alas! for Mrs. Peckaby. Alas! for her disappointment. It was nothing but that deceiving animal again, Farmer Blow's white pony. Apparently the pony had been so comfortable in the forge, that he did not care to leave it. He was dodging about and backing, wholly refusing to go forward, and setting at defiance a boy who was striving to lead him onwards. Mrs. Peckaby sat down and burst into tears.



CHAPTER XLV.

STIFLED WITH DISHONOUR.

"Now, then," began Peckaby, as Lionel departed, "what's the reason my tea ain't ready for me."

"Be you a man to ask?" demanded she. "Could I redd up and put on kettles, and, see to ord'nary work, with my inside turning?"

Peckaby paused for a minute. "I've a good mind to wallop you!"

"Try it," she aggravatingly answered. "You have not kep' your hands off me yet to be let begin now. Anybody but a brute 'ud comfort a poor woman in her distress. You'll be sorry for it when I'm gone off to New Jerusalem."

"Now, look here, Suke," said he, attempting to reason with her. "It's quite time as you left off this folly; we've had enough on't. What do you suppose you'd do at Salt Lake? What sort of a life 'ud you lead?"

"A joyful life!" she responded, turning her glance sky-ward. "Brother Jarrum thinks as the head saint, the prophet hisself, has a favour to me! Wives is as happy there as the day's long."

Peckaby grinned; the reply amused him much. "You poor ignorant creatur," cried he, "you have got your head up in a mad-house; and that's about it. You know Mary Green?"

"Well?" answered she, looking surprised at this divertissement.

"And you know Nancy from Verner's Pride as is gone off," he continued, "and you know half a dozen more nice young girls about here, which you can just set on and think of. How 'ud you like to see me marry the whole of 'em, and bring 'em home here? Would the house hold the tantrums you'd go into, d'ye think?"

"You hold your senseless tongue, Peckaby! A man 'ud better try and bring home more nor one wife here! The law 'ud be on to him."

"In course it would," returned Peckaby! "And the law knowed what it was about when it made itself into the law. A place with more nor one wife in it 'ud be compairable to nothing but that blazing place you've heerd on as is under our feet, or the Salt Lake City."

"For shame, you wicked man!"

"There ain't no shame, in saying that; it's truth," composedly answered Peckaby. "Brother Jarrum said, didn't he, as the wives had a parlour a-piece. Why do they? 'Cause they be obleeged to be kep' apart, for fear o' damaging each other, a-tearing and biting and scratching, and a-pulling of eyes out. A nice figure you'd cut among 'em! You'd be a-wishing yourself home again afore you'd tried it for a day. Don't you be a fool, Susan Peckaby."

"Don't you!" retorted she. "I wonder you ain't afraid o' some judgment falling on you. Lies is sure to come home to people."

"Just take your thoughts back to the time as we had the shop here, and plenty o' custom in it. One day you saw me just a-kissing of a girl in that there corner—leastways you fancied as you saw me," corrected Peckaby, coughing down his slip. "Well, d'ye recollect the scrimmage? Didn't you go a'most mad, never keeping' your tongue quiet for a week, and the place hardly holding of ye? How 'ud you like to have eight or ten more of 'em, my married wives, like you be, brought in here?"

"You are a fool, Peckaby. The cases is different."

"Where's the difference?" asked Peckaby. "The men be men, out there; and the women be women. I might pertend as I'd had visions and revelations sent to me, and dress myself up in a black coat and a white neck-an-kecher, and suchlike paycock's plumes—I might tar and feather myself if I pleased, if it come to that—and give out as I was a prophit and a Latter Day Saint; but where 'ud be the difference, I want to know? I should just be as good and as bad a man as I be now, only a bit more of a hypocrite. Saints and prophits, indeed! You just come to your senses, Susan Peckaby."

"I haven't lost 'em yet," answered she, looking inclined to beat him.

"You have lost 'em; to suppose as a life, out with them reptiles, could be anything but just what I telled you—a hell. It can't be otherways. It's again human female natur. If you went angry mad with jealousy, just at fancying you see a innocent kiss give upon a girl's face, how 'ud you do, I ask, when it come to wives? Tales runs as them 'saints' have got any number a-piece, from four or five, up to seventy. If you don't come to your senses, Mrs. Peckaby, you'll get a walloping, to bring you to 'em; and that's about it. You be the laughing-stock o' the place as it is."

He swung out at the door, and took his way towards the nearest public-house, intending to solace himself with a pint of ale, in lieu of tea, of which he saw no chance. Mrs. Peckaby burst into a flood of tears, and apostrophised the expected white donkey in moving terms: that he would forthwith appear and bear her off from Peckaby and trouble, to the triumphs and delights of New Jerusalem.

Lionel, meanwhile, went to Roy's dwelling. Roy, he found, was not in it. Mrs. Roy was; and, by the appearance of the laid-out tea-table, she was probably expecting Roy to enter. Mrs. Roy sat doing nothing, her arms hung listlessly down, her head also; sunk apparently in that sad state of mind—whatever may have been its cause—which was now habitual to her. By the start with which she sprang from her chair, as Lionel Verner appeared at the open door, it may be inferred that she took him for her husband. Surely nobody else could have put her in such tremor.

"Roy's not in, sir," she said, dropping a curtsey, in answer to Lionel's inquiry. "May be, he'll not be long. It's his time for coming home, but there's no dependence on him."

Lionel glanced round. He saw that the woman was alone, and he deemed it a good opportunity to ask her about what had been mentioned to him, two or three hours previously, by the Vicar of Deerham. Closing the door, and advancing towards her, he began.

"I want to say a word to you, Mrs. Roy. What were your grounds for stating to Mr. Bourne that Mr. Frederick Massingbird was with Rachel Frost at the Willow Pool the evening of her death?"

Mrs. Roy gave a low shriek of terror, and flung her apron over her face. Lionel ungallantly drew it down again. Her countenance was turning livid as death.

"You will have the goodness to answer me, Mrs. Roy."

"It were just a dream sir," she said, the words issuing in unequal jerks from her trembling lips, "I have been pretty nigh crazed lately. What with them Mormons, and the uncertainty of fixing what to do—whether to believe 'em or not—and Roy's crabbed temper, which grows upon him, and other fears and troubles, I've been a-nigh crazed. It were just a dream as I had, and nothing more; and I be vexed to my heart that I should have made such a fool of myself, as to go and say what I did to Mr. Bourne."

One word above all others, caught the attention of Lionel in the answer. It was "fears." He bent towards her, lowering his voice.

"What are these fears that seem to pursue you? You appear to me to have been perpetually under the influence of fear since that night. Terrified you were then; terrified you remain. What is the cause?"

The woman trembled excessively.

"Roy keeps me in fear, sir. He's for ever a-threatening. He'll shake me, or he'll pinch me, or he'll do for me, he says. I'm in fear of him always."

"That is an evasive answer," remarked Lionel. "Why should you fear to confide in me? You have never known me to take an advantage to anybody's injury. The past is past. That unfortunate night's work appears now to belong wholly to the past. Nevertheless, if you can throw any light upon it, it is your duty to do so. I will keep the secret."

"I didn't know a thing, sir, about the night's work. I didn't," she sobbed.

"Hush!" said Lionel. "I felt sure at the time that you did know something, had you chosen to speak. I feel more sure of it now."

"No, I don't, sir; not if you pulled me in pieces for it. I had a horrid dream, and I went straight off, like a fool, to Mr. Bourne and told it, and—and—that was all, sir."

She was flinging her apron up again to hide her countenance, when, with a faint cry, she let it fall, sprung from her seat, and stood before Lionel.

"For the love of heaven, sir, say nothing to him!" she uttered, and disappeared within an inner door. The sight of Roy, entering, explained the enigma; she must have seen him from the window. Roy took off his cap by way of salute.

"I hope I see you well, sir, after your journey."

"Quite well. Roy, some papers have been left at Verner's Pride for my inspection, regarding the dispute in Farmer Hartright's lease. I do not understand them. They bear your signature, not Mrs. Verner's. How is that?"

Roy stopped a while—to collect his thoughts, possibly. "I suppose I signed it for her, sir."

"Then you did what you had no authority to do. You never received power to sign from Mrs. Verner."

"Mrs. Verner must have give me power, sir, if I have signed. I don't recollect signing anything. Sometimes, when she was ill, or unwilling to be disturbed, she'd say, 'Roy, do this,' or, 'Roy, do the other.' She—"

"Mrs. Verner never gave you authority to sign," impressively repeated Lionel. "She is gone, and therefore cannot be referred to; but you know as well as I do, that she never did give you such authority. Come to Verner's Pride to-morrow morning at ten, and see these papers."

Roy signified his obedience, and Lionel departed. He bent his steps towards home, taking the field way; all the bitter experiences of the day rising up within his mind. Ah! try as he would, he could not deceive himself; he could not banish or drown the one ever-present thought. The singular information imparted by Mr. Bourne; the serio-comic tribulation of Mrs. Peckaby, waiting for her white donkey; the mysterious behaviour of Dinah Roy, in which there was undoubtedly more than met the ear; all these could not cover for a moment the one burning fact—Lucy's love, and his own dishonour. In vain Lionel flung off his hat, heedless of any second sun-stroke, and pushed his hair from his heated brow. It was of no use; as he had felt when he went out from the presence of Lucy, so he felt now—stifled with dishonour.

Sibylla was at a table, writing notes, when he reached home. Several were on it, already written, and in their envelopes. She looked up at him.

"Oh, Lionel, what a while you have been out! I thought you were never coming home."

He leaned down and kissed her. Although his conscience had revealed to him, that day, that he loved another better, she should never feel the difference. Nay, the very knowledge that it was so would render him all the more careful to give her marks of love.

"I have been to my mother's, and to one or two more places. What are you so busy over, dear?"

"I am writing invitations," said Sibylla.

"Invitations! Before people have called upon you?"

"They can call all the same. I have been asking Mary Tynn how many beds she can, by dint of screwing, afford. I am going to fill them all. I shall ask them for a month. How grave you look, Lionel!"

"In this first early sojourn together in our own house, Sibylla, I think we shall be happier alone."

"Oh, no, we should not. I love visitors. We shall be together all the same, Lionel."

"My little wife," he said, "if you cared for me as I care for you, you would not feel the want of visitors just now."

And there was no sophistry in this speech. He had come to the conviction that Lucy ought to have been his wife, but he did care for Sibylla very much. The prospect of a house full of guests at the present moment, appeared most displeasing to him, if only as a matter of taste.

"Put it off for a few weeks, Sibylla."

Sibylla pouted. "It is of no use preaching, Lionel. If you are to be a preaching husband, I shall be sorry I married you. Fred was never that."

Lionel's face turned blood-red. Sibylla put up her hand, and drew it carelessly down.

"You must let me have my own way for this once," she coaxingly said. "What's the use of my bringing all those loves of things from Paris, if we are to live in a dungeon, and nobody's to see them? I must invite them, Lionel."

"Very well," he answered, yielding the point. Yielding it the more readily from the consciousness above spoken of.

"There's my dear Lionel! I knew you would never turn tyrant. And now I want something else."

"What's that?" asked Lionel.

"A cheque."

"A cheque? I gave you one this morning, Sibylla."

"Oh! but the one you gave me is for housekeeping—for Mary Tynn, and all that. I want one for myself. I am not going to have my expenses come out of the housekeeping."

Lionel sat down to write one, a good-natured smile on his face. "I'm sure I don't know what you will find to spend it in, after all the finery you bought in Paris," he said, in a joking tone. "How much shall I fill it in for?"

"As much as you will," replied Sibylla, too eagerly. "Couldn't you give it me in blank, and let me fill it in?"

He made no answer. He drew it for L100, and gave it her.

"Will that do, my dear?"

She drew his face down again caressingly. But, in spite of the kisses left upon his lips, Lionel had awoke to the conviction, firm and undoubted, that his wife did not love him.



CHAPTER XLVI.

SHADOWED-FORTH EMBARRASSMENT.

The September afternoon sun streamed into the study at Verner's Pride, playing with the bright hair of Lionel Verner. His head was bending listlessly over certain letters and papers on his table, and there was a wearied look upon his face. Was it called up by the fatigue of the day? He had been out with some friends in the morning; it was the first day of partridge shooting, and they had bagged well. Now Lionel was home again, had changed his attire, and was sitting down in his study—the old study of Mr. Verner. Or, was the wearied look, were the indented upright lines between the eyes, called forth by inward care?

Those lines were not so conspicuous when you last saw him. Twelve or fourteen months have elapsed since then. A portion of that time only had been spent at Verner's Pride. Mrs. Verner was restless; ever wishing to be on the wing; living but in gaiety. Her extravagance was something frightful, and Lionel did not know how to check it. There were no children; there had been no signs of any; and Mrs. Verner positively made the lack into a sort of reproach, a continual cause for querulousness.

She had filled Verner's Pride with guests after their marriage—as she had coveted to do. From that period until early spring she had kept it filled, one succession of guests, one relay of visitors arriving after the other. Pretty, capricious, fascinating, youthful, Mrs. Verner was of excessive popularity in the country, and a sojourn at Verner's Pride grew to be eagerly sought. The women liked the attractive master; the men bowed to the attractive mistress; and Verner's Pride was never free. On the contrary, it was generally unpleasantly crammed; and Mrs. Tynn, who was a staid, old-fashioned housekeeper, accustomed to nothing beyond the regular, quiet household maintained by the late Mr. Verner, was driven to the verge of desperation.

"It would be far pleasanter if we had only half the number of guests," Lionel had said to his wife in the winter. He no longer remonstrated against any: he had given that up as hopeless. "Pleasanter for them, pleasanter for us, pleasanter for the servants."

"The servants!" slightingly returned Sibylla. "I never knew before that the pleasure of servants was a thing to be studied."

"But their comfort is. At least, I have always considered so, and I hope I always shall. They complain much, Sibylla."

"Do they complain to you?"

"They do. Tynn and his wife say they are nearly worked to death. They hint at leaving. Mrs. Tynn is continually subjected also to what she calls insults from your French maid. That of course I know nothing of; but it might be as well for you to listen to her on the subject."

"I cannot have Benoite crossed. I don't interfere in the household myself, and she does it for me."

"But, my dear, if you would interfere a little more, just so far as to ascertain whether these complaints have grounds, you might apply a remedy."

"Lionel, you are most unreasonable! As if I could be worried with looking into things! What are servants for? You must be a regular old bachelor to think of my doing it."

"Well—to go to our first point," he rejoined. "Let us try half the number of guests, and see how it works. If you do not find it better, more agreeable in all ways, I will say no more about it."

He need not have said anything, then. Sibylla would not listen to it. At any rate, would not act upon it. She conceded so far as to promise that she would not invite so many next time. But, when that next time came, and the new sojourners arrived, they turned out to be more. Beds had to be improvised in all sorts of impossible places; the old servants were turned out of their chambers and huddled into corners; nothing but confusion and extravagance reigned. Against some of the latter, Mrs. Tynn ventured to remonstrate to her mistress. Fruits and vegetables out of season; luxuries in the shape of rare dishes, many of which Verner's Pride had never heard of, and did not know how to cook, and all of the most costly nature, were daily sent down from London purveyors. Against this expense Mary Tynn spoke. Mrs. Verner laughed good-naturedly at her, and told her it was not her pocket that would be troubled to pay the bills. Additional servants were obliged to be had; and, in short, to use an expression that was much in vogue at Deerham about that time, Verner's Pride was going the pace.

This continued until early spring. In February Sibylla fixed her heart upon a visit to London. "Of course," she told Lionel, "he would treat her to a season in town." She had never been to London in her life to stay. For Sibylla to fix her heart upon a thing, was to have it; Lionel was an indulgent husband.

To London they proceeded in February. And there the cost was great. Sibylla was not one to go to work sparingly in any way; neither, in point of fact, was Lionel. Lionel would never have been unduly extravagant; but, on the other hand, he was not accustomed to spare. A furnished house in a good position was taken; servants were imported to it from Verner's Pride; and there Sibylla launched into all the follies of the day. At Easter she "set her heart" upon a visit to Paris, and Lionel acquiesced. They remained there three weeks; Sibylla laying in a second stock of toilettes for Mademoiselle Benoite to rule over; and then they went back to London.

The season was prolonged that year. The House sat until August, and it was not until the latter end of that month that Mr. and Mrs. Verner returned to Verner's Pride. Though scarcely home a week yet, the house was filled again—filled to overflowing; Lionel can hear sounds of talking and laughter from the various rooms, as he bends over his table. He was opening his letters, three or four of which lay in a stack. He had gone out in the morning before the post was in.

Tynn knocked at the door and entered, bringing a note.

"Where's this from?" asked Lionel, taking it from the salver. Another moment, and he had recognised the handwriting of his mother.

"From Deerham Court, sir. My lady's footman brought it. He asks whether there is any answer."

Lionel opened the note, and read as follows:—

"MY DEAR LIONEL,—I am obliged to be a beggar again. My expenses seem to outrun my means in a most extraordinary sort of way. Sometimes I think it must be Decima's fault, and tell her she does not properly look after the household. In spite of my own income, your ample allowance, and the handsome remuneration received for Lucy, I cannot make both ends meet. Will you let me have two or three hundred pounds?

"Ever your affectionate mother,

"LOUISA VERNER."

"I will call on Lady Verner this afternoon, Tynn."

Tynn withdrew with the answer. Lionel leaned his brow upon his hand; the weary expression terribly plain just then.

"My mother shall have it at once—no matter what my own calls may be," was his soliloquy. "Let me never forget that Verner's Pride might have been hers all these years. Looking at it from our own point of view, my father's branch in contradistinction of my uncle's, it ought to have been hers. It might have been her jointure-house now, had my father lived, and so willed it. I am glad to help my mother," he continued, an earnest glow lighting his face. "If I get embarrassed, why, I must get embarrassed; but she shall not suffer."

That embarrassment would inevitably come, if he went on at his present rate of living, he had the satisfaction of knowing beyond all doubt. That was not the worst point upon his conscience. Of the plans and projects that Lionel had so eagerly formed when he came into the estate, some were set afloat, some were not. Those that were most wanted—that were calculated to do the most real good—lay in abeyance; others, that might have waited, were in full work. Costly alterations were making in the stables at Verner's Pride, and the working man's institute at Deerham—reading-room, club, whatever it was to be—was progressing swimmingly. But the draining of the land near the poor dwellings was not begun, and the families, many of them, still herded in consort—father and mother, sons and daughters, sleeping in one room—compelled to it by the wretched accommodation of the tenements. It was on this last score that Lionel was feeling a pricking of conscience. And how to find the money to make these improvements now, he knew not. Between the building in progress and Sibylla, he was drained.

A circumstance had occurred that day to bring the latter neglect forcibly to his mind. Alice Hook—Hook the labourer's eldest daughter—had, as the Deerham phrase ran, got herself into trouble. A pretty child she had grown up amongst them—she was little more than a child now—good-tempered, gay-hearted. Lionel had heard the ill news the previous week on his return from London. When he was out shooting that morning he saw the girl at a distance, and made some observation to his gamekeeper, Broom, to the effect that it had vexed him.

"Ay, sir, it's a sad pity," was Broom's answer; "but what else can be expected of poor folks that's brought up to live as they do—like pigs in a sty?"

Broom had intended no reproach to his master; such an impertinence would not have crossed his mind; but the words carried a sting to Lionel. He knew how many, besides Alice Hook, had had their good conduct undermined through the living "like pigs in a sty." Lionel had, as you know, a lively conscience; and his brow reddened with self-reproach as he sat and thought these things over. He could not help comparing the contrast: Verner's Pride, with its spacious bedrooms, one of which was not deemed sufficient for the purposes of retirement, where two people slept together, but a dressing-closet must be attached; and those poor Hooks, with their growing-up sons and daughters, and but one room, save the kitchen, in their whole dwelling!

"I will put things on a better footing," impulsively exclaimed Lionel. "I care not what the cost may be, or how it may fall upon my comforts, do it I will. I declare, I feel as if the girl's blight lay at my own door!"

Again he and his reflections were interrupted by Tynn.

"Roy has come up, sir, and is asking to see you."

"Roy! Let him come in," replied Lionel. "I want to see him."

It frequently happened, when agreements, leases, and other deeds were examined, that Roy had to be referred to. Things would turn out to have been drawn up, agreements made, in precisely the opposite manner to that expected by Lionel. For some of these Roy might have received sanction; but, for many, Lionel felt sure Roy had acted on his own responsibility. This chiefly applied to the short period of the management of Mrs. Verner; a little, very little, to the latter year of her husband's life. Matiss was Lionel's agent during his absences; when at home, he took all management into his own hands.

Roy came in. The same ill-favoured, hard-looking man as ever. The ostensible business which had brought him up to Verner's Pride, proved to be of a very trivial nature, and was soon settled. It is well to say "ostensible," because a conviction arose in Lionel's mind afterwards that it was but an excuse: that Roy made it a pretext for the purpose of obtaining an interview. Though why, or wherefore, or what he gained by it, Lionel could not imagine. Roy merely wanted to know if he might be allowed to put a fresh paper on the walls of one of his two upper rooms. He'd get the paper at his own cost, and hang it at his own leisure, if Mr. Verner had no objection.

"Of course I can have no objection to it," replied Lionel. "You need not have lost an afternoon's work, Roy, to come here to inquire that. You might have asked me when I saw you by the brick-field this morning. In fact, there was no necessity to mention it at all."

"So I might, sir. But it didn't come into my mind at the moment to do so. It's poor Luke's room, and the missis, she goes on continual about the state it's in, if he should come home. The paper's all hanging off it in patches, sir, as big as my two hands. It have got damp through not being used."

"If it is in that state, and you like to find the time to hang the paper, you may purchase it at my cost," said Lionel, who was of too just a nature to be a hard landlord.

"Thank ye, sir," replied Roy, ducking his head. "It's well for us, as I often says, that you be our master at last, instead of the Mr. Massingbirds."

"There was a time when you did not think so, Roy, if my memory serves me rightly," was the rebuke of Lionel.

"Ah, sir, there's a old saying, 'Live and learn.' That was in the days when I thought you'd be a over strict master; we have got to know better now, taught from experience. It was a lucky day for the Verner Pride estate when that lost codicil was brought to light! The Mr. Massingbirds be dead, it's true, but there's no knowing what might have happened; the law's full of quips and turns. With the codicil found, you can hold your own again' the world."

"Who told you anything about the codicil being found?" demanded Lionel.

"Why, sir, it was the talk of the place just about the time we heard of Mr. Fred Massingbird's death. Folks said, whether he had died, or whether he had not, you'd have come in all the same. T'other day, too, I was talking of it to Lawyer Matiss, and he said what a good thing it was, that that there codicil was found."

Lionel knew that a report of the turning up of the codicil had travelled to Deerham. It had never been contradicted. But he wondered to hear Roy say that Matiss had spoken of it. Matiss, himself, Tynn, and Mrs. Tynn, were the only persons who could have testified that the supposed codicil was nothing but a glove. From the finding of that, the story had originally got wind.

"I don't know why Matiss should have spoken to you on the subject of the codicil," he remarked to Roy.

"It's not much that Matiss talks, sir," was the man's answer. "All he said was as he had got the codicil in safe keeping under lock and key. Just put to Matiss the simplest question, and he'll turn round and ask what business it is of yours."

"Quite right of him, too," said Lionel. "Have you any news of your son yet, Roy?"

Roy shook his head. "No, sir. I'm a-beginning to wonder now whether there ever will be news of him."

After the man had departed, Lionel looked at his watch. There was just time for a ride to Deerham Court before dinner. He ordered his horse, and mounted it, a cheque for three hundred pounds in his pocket.

He rode quickly, musing upon what Matiss had said about the codicil—as stated by Roy. Could the deed have been found?—and Matiss forgotten to acquaint him with it. He turned his horse down the Belvedere Road, telling his groom to wait at the corner, and stopped before the lawyer's door. The latter came out.

"Matiss, is that codicil found?" demanded Lionel, bending down his head to speak.

"What codicil, Mr. Verner?" returned Matiss, looking surprised.

"The codicil. The one that gave me the estate. Roy was with me just now, and he said you stated to him that the codicil was found—that it was safe under lock and key."

The lawyer's countenance lighted up with a smile. "What a meddler the fellow is! To tell you the truth, sir, it rather pleases me to mislead Roy, and put him on the wrong scent. He comes here, pumping, trying to get what he can out of me: asking this, asking that, fishing out anything there is to fish. I recollect, he did say something about the codicil, and I replied, 'Ay, it was a good thing it was found, and safe under lock and key.' He tries at the wrong handle when he pumps at me."

"What is his motive for pumping at all?" returned Lionel.

"There's no difficulty in guessing at that, sir. Roy would give his two ears to get into place again; he'd like to fill the same post to you that he did to the late Mr. Verner. He thinks if he can hang about here and pick up any little bit of information that may be let drop, and carry it to you, that it might tell in his favour. He would like you to discover how useful he could be. That is the construction I put upon it."

"Then he wastes his time," remarked Lionel, as he turned his horse. "I would not put power of any sort into Roy's hands, if he paid me in diamonds to do it. You can tell him so, if you like, Matiss."

Arrived at Deerham Court, Lionel left his horse with his groom, and entered. The first person to greet his sight in the hall was Lucy Tempest. She was in white silk; a low dress, somewhat richly trimmed with lace, and pearls in her hair. It was the first time that Lionel had seen her since his return from London. He had been at his mother's once or twice, but Lucy did not appear. They met face to face. Lucy's turned crimson, in spite of herself.

"Are you quite well?" asked Lionel, shaking hands, his own pulses beating. "You are going out this evening, I see?"

He made the remark as a question, noticing her dress; and Lucy, gathering her senses about her, and relapsing into her calm composure, looked somewhat surprised.

"We are going to dinner to Verner's Pride; I and Decima. Did you not expect us?"

"I—did not know it," he was obliged to answer. "Mrs. Verner mentioned that some friends would dine with us this evening, but I was not aware that you and Decima were part of them. I am glad to hear it."

Lucy continued her way, wondering what sort of a household it could be where the husband remained in ignorance of his wife's expected guests. Lionel passed on to the drawing-room.

Lady Verner sat in it. Her white gloves on her delicate hands as usual, her essence bottle and laced handkerchief beside her, Lionel offered her his customary fond greeting, and placed the cheque in her hands.

"Will that do, mother mine?"

"Admirably, Lionel. I am so much obliged to you. Things get behind-hand in the most unaccountable manner, and then Decima comes to me with a long face, and says here's this debt and that debt. It is quite a marvel to me how the money goes. Decima would like to put her accounts into my hands that I may look over them. The idea of my taking upon myself to examine accounts! But how it is she gets into such debt, I cannot think."

Poor Decima knew only too well. Lionel knew it also; though, in his fond reverence, he would not hint at such a thing to his mother. Lady Verner's style of living was too expensive, and that was the cause.

"I met Lucy in the hall, dressed. She and Decima are coming to dine at Verner's Pride, she tells me."

"Did you not know it?"

"No. I have been out shooting all day. If Sibylla mentioned it to me, I forgot it."

Sibylla had not mentioned it. But Lionel would rather take any blame to himself than suffer a shade of it to rest upon her.

"Mrs. Verner called yesterday, and invited us. I declined for myself. I should have declined for Decima, but I did not think it right to deprive Lucy of the pleasure, and she could not go alone. Ungrateful child!" apostrophised Lady Verner. "When I told her this morning I had accepted an invitation for her to Verner's Pride, she turned the colour of scarlet, and said she would rather remain at home. I never saw so unsociable a girl; she does not care to go out, as it seems to me. I insisted upon it for this evening."

"Mother, why don't you come?"

Lady Verner half turned from him.

"Lionel, you must not forget our compact. If I visit your wife now and then, just to keep gossiping tongues quiet, from saying that Lady Verner and her son are estranged, I cannot do it often."

"Were there any cause why you should show this disfavour to Sibylla—"

"Our compact, our compact, my son! You are not to urge me upon this point, do you remember? I rarely break my resolutions, Lionel."

"Or your prejudices either, mother."

"Very true," was the equable answer of Lady Verner.

Little more was said. Lionel found the time drawing on, and left. Lady Verner's carriage was already at the door, waiting to convey Decima and Lucy Tempest to the dinner at Verner's Pride. As he was about to mount his horse, Peckaby passed by, rolling a wheel before him. He touched his cap.

"Well," said Lionel, "has the white donkey arrived yet?"

A contraction of anger, not, however, unmixed with mirth, crossed the man's face.

"I wish it would come, sir, and bear her off on't!" was his hearty response. "She's more a fool nor ever over it, a-whining and a-pining all day long, 'cause she ain't at New Jerusalem. She wants to be in Bedlam, sir; that's what she do! it 'ud do her more good nor t'other."

Lionel laughed, and Peckaby struck his wheel with such impetus that it went off at a tangent, and he had to follow it on the run.



CHAPTER XLVII.

THE YEW-TREE ON THE LAWN.

The rooms were lighted at Verner's Pride; the blaze from the chandeliers fell on gay faces and graceful forms. The dinner was over, its scene "a banquet hall deserted"; and the guests were filling the drawing-rooms.

The centre of an admiring group, its chief attraction, sat Sibylla, her dress some shining material that glimmered in the light, and her hair confined with a band of diamonds. Inexpressibly beautiful by this light she undoubtedly was, but she would have been more charming had she less laid herself out for attraction. Lionel, Lord Garle, Decima, and young Bitterworth—he was generally called young Bitterworth, in contradistinction to his father, who was "old Bitterworth"—formed another group; Sir Rufus Hautley was talking to the Countess of Elmsley; and Lucy Tempest sat apart near the window.

Sir Rufus had but just moved away from Lucy, and for the moment she was alone. She sat within the embrasure of the window, and was looking on the calm scene outside. How different from the garish scene within! See the pure moonlight, side by side with the most brilliant light we earthly inventors can produce, and contrast them! Pure and fair as the moonlight looked Lucy, her white robes falling softly round her, and her girlish face wearing a thoughtful expression. It was a remarkably light night; the terrace, the green slopes beyond it, and the clustering trees far away, all standing out clear and distinct in the moon's rays. Suddenly her eye rested on a particular spot. She possessed a very clear sight, and it appeared to detect something dark there; which dark something had not been there a few moments before.

Lucy strained her eyes, and shaded them, and gazed again. Presently she turned her head, and glanced at Lionel. An expression in her eyes seemed to call him, and he advanced.

"What is it, Lucy? We must have a set of gallant men here to-night, to leave you alone like this!"

The compliment fell unheeded on her ear. Compliments from him! Lionel only so spoke to hide his real feelings.

"Look on the lawn, right before us," said Lucy to him, in a low tone. "Underneath the spreading yew-tree. Do you not fancy the trunk looks remarkably dark and thick?"

"The trunk remarkably dark and thick!" echoed Lionel. "What do you mean, Lucy?" For he judged by her tone that she had some hidden meaning.

"I believe that some man is standing there. He must be watching this room."

Lionel could not see it. His eyes had not been watching so long as Lucy's, consequently objects were less distinct. "I think you must be mistaken, Lucy," he said. "No one would be at the trouble of standing there to watch the room. It is too far off to see much, whatever may be their curiosity."

Lucy held her hands over her eyes, gazing attentively from beneath them. "I feel convinced of it now," she presently said. "There is some one, and it looks like a man, standing behind the trunk, as if hiding himself. His head is pushed out on this side, certainly, as though he were watching these windows. I have seen the head move twice."

Lionel placed his hands in the same position, and took a long gaze. "I do think you are right, Lucy!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I saw something move then. What business has any one to plant himself there?"

He stepped impulsively out as he spoke—the windows opened to the ground—crossed the terrace, descended the steps, and turned on the lawn, to the left hand. A minute, and he was up at the tree.

But he gained no satisfaction. The spreading tree, with its imposing trunk—which trunk was nearly as thick as a man's body—stood all solitary on the smooth grass, no living thing being near it.

"We must have been mistaken, after all," thought Lionel.

Nevertheless, he stood under the tree, and cast his keen glances around. Nothing could he see; nothing but what ought to be there. The wide lawn, the sweet flowers closed to the night, the remoter parts where the trees were thick, all stood cold and still in the white moonlight. But of human disturber there was none.

Lionel went back again, plucking a white geranium blossom and a sprig of sweet verbena on his way. Lucy was sitting alone, as he had left her.

"It was a false alarm," he whispered. "Nothing's there, except the tree."

"It was not a false alarm," she answered. "I saw him move away as you went on to the lawn. He drew back towards the thicket."

"Are you sure?" questioned Lionel, his tone betraying that he doubted whether she was not mistaken.

"Oh, yes, I am sure," said Lucy. "Do you know what my old nurse used to tell me when I was a child?" she asked, lifting her face to his. "She said I had the Indian sight, because I could see so far and so distinctly. Some of the Indians have the gift greatly, you know. I am quite certain that I saw the object—and it looked like the figure of a man—go swiftly away from the tree across the grass. I could not see him to the end of the lawn, but he must have gone into the plantation. I dare say he saw you coming towards him."

Lionel smiled. "I wish I had caught the spy. He should have answered to me for being there. Do you like verbena, Lucy?"

He laid the verbena and geranium on her lap, and she took them up mechanically.

"I do not like spies," she said, in a dreamy tone. "In India they have been known to watch the inmates of a house in the evening, and to bow-string one of those they were watching before the morning. You are laughing! Indeed, my nurse used to tell me tales of it."

"We have no spies in England—in that sense, Lucy. When I used the word spy, it was with no meaning attached to it. It is not impossible but it may be a sweetheart of one of the maid-servants, come up from Deerham for a rendezvous. Be under no apprehension."

At that moment, the voice of his wife came ringing through the room. "Mr. Verner!"

He turned to the call. Waiting to say another word to Lucy, as a thought struck him. "You would prefer not to remain at the window, perhaps. Let me take you to a more sheltered seat."

"Oh, no, thank you," she answered impulsively. "I like being at the window. It is not of myself that I am thinking." And Lionel moved away.

"Is it not true that the fountains at Versailles played expressly for me?" eagerly asked Sibylla, as he approached her. "Sir Rufus won't believe that they did. The first time we were in Paris, you know."

Sir Rufus Hautley was by her side then. He looked at Lionel. "They never play for private individuals, Mr. Verner. At least, if they do, things have changed."

"My wife thought they did," returned Lionel, with a smile. "It was all the same."

"They did, Lionel, you know they did," vehemently asserted Sibylla. "De Coigny told me so; and he held authority in the Government."

"I know that De Coigny told you so, and that you believed him," answered Lionel, still smiling. "I did not believe him."

Sibylla turned her head away petulantly from her husband. "You are saying it to annoy me. I'll never appeal to you again. Sir Rufus, they did play expressly for me."

"It may be bad taste, but I'd rather see the waterworks at St. Cloud than at Versailles," observed a Mr. Gordon, some acquaintance that they had picked up in town, and to whom it had been Sibylla's pleasure to give an invitation. "Cannonby wrote me word last week from Paris——"

"Who?" sharply interrupted Sibylla.

Mr. Gordon looked surprised. Her tone had betrayed something of eager alarm, not to say terror.

"Captain Cannonby, Mrs. Verner. A friend of mine just returned from Australia. Business took him to Paris as soon as he landed."

"Is he from the Melbourne port? Is his Christian name Lawrence?" she reiterated breathlessly.

"Yes—to both questions," replied Mr. Gordon.

Sibylla shrieked, and lifted her handkerchief to her face. They gathered round her in consternation. One offering smelling-salts, one running for water. Lionel gently drew the handkerchief from her face. It was white as death.

"What ails you, my dear?" he whispered.

She seemed to recover her equanimity as suddenly as she had lost it, and the colour began to appear in her cheeks again.

"His name—Cannonby's—puts me in mind of those unhappy days," she said, not in the low tone used by her husband, but aloud—speaking, in fact, to all around her. "I did not know Captain Cannonby had returned. When did he come, Mr. Gordon?"

"About eight or nine days ago."

"Has he made his fortune?"

Mr. Gordon laughed. "I fancy not. Cannonby was always of a roving nature. I expect he got tired of the Australian world before fortune had time to find him out."

Sibylla was soon deep in her flirtations again. It is not erroneous to call them so. But they were innocent flirtations—the result of vanity. Lionel moved away.

Another commotion. Some great long-legged fellow, without ceremony or warning, came striding in at the window close to Lucy Tempest. Lucy's thoughts had been buried—it is hard to say where, and her eyes were strained to the large yew-tree upon the grass. The sudden entrance startled her, albeit she was not of a nervous temperament. With Indian bow-strings in the mind, and fancied moonlight spies before the sight, a scream was inevitable.

Whom should it be but Jan! Jan, of course. What other guest would be likely to enter in that unceremonious fashion? Strictly speaking, Jan was not a guest—at any rate, not an invited one.

"I had got a minute to spare this evening, so thought I'd come up and have a look at you," proclaimed unfashionable Jan to the room, but principally addressing Lionel and Sibylla.

And so Jan had come, and stood there without the least shame, in drab trousers, and a loose, airy coat, shaking hands with Sir Rufus, shaking hands with anybody who would shake hands with him. Sibylla looked daggers at Jan, and Lionel cross. Not from the same cause. Sibylla's displeasure was directed to Jan's style of evening costume; Lionel felt vexed with him for alarming Lucy. But Lionel never very long retained displeasure, and his sweet smile stole over his lips as he spoke.

"Jan, I shall be endorsing Lady Verner's request—that you come into a house like a Christian—if you are to startle ladies in this fashion."

"Whom did I startle?" asked Jan.

"You startled Lucy."

"Nonsense! Did I, Miss Lucy?"

"Yes, you did a little, Jan," she replied.

"What a stupid you must be!" retorted gallant Jan. "I should say you want doctoring, if your nerves are in that state. You take—"

"Oh, Jan, that will do," laughed Lucy. "I am sure I don't want medicine. You know how I dislike it."

They were standing together within the large window, Jan and Lionel, Lucy sitting close to them. She sat with her head a little bent, scenting her verbena.

"The truth is, Jan, I and Lucy have been watching some intruder who had taken up his station on the lawn, underneath the yew-tree," whispered Lionel. "I suppose Lucy thought he was bursting in upon us."

"Yes, I did really think he was," said Lucy, looking up with a smile.

"Who was it?" asked Jan.

"He did not give us the opportunity of ascertaining," replied Lionel. "I am not quite sure, mind, that I did see him; but Lucy is positive upon the point. I went to the tree, but he had disappeared. It is rather strange why he should be watching."

"He was watching this room attentively," said Lucy, "and I saw him move away when Mr. Verner went on the lawn. I am sure he was a spy of some sort."

"I can tell you who it was," said Jan. "It was Roy."

"Roy!" repeated Lionel. "Why do you say this?"

"Well," said Jan, "as I turned in here, I saw Roy cross the road to the opposite gate. I don't know where he could have sprung from, except from these grounds. That he was neither behind me nor before me as I came up the road, I can declare."

"Then it was Roy!" exclaimed Lionel. "He would have had about time to get into the road, from the time we saw him under the tree. That the fellow is prying into my affairs and movements, I was made aware of to-day; but why he should watch my house I cannot imagine. We shall have an account to settle, Mr. Roy!"

Decima came up, asking what private matter they were discussing, and Lionel and Lucy went over the ground again, acquainting her with what had been seen. They stood together in a group, conversing in an undertone. By and by, Mrs. Verner passed, moving from one part of the room to another, on the arm of Sir Rufus Hautley.

"Quite a family conclave," she exclaimed, with a laugh. "Decima, however much you may wish for attention, it is scarcely fair to monopolise that of Mr. Verner in his own house. If he forgets that he has guests present, you should not help him in the forgetfulness."

"It would be well if all wished for attention as little as does Miss Verner," exclaimed Lord Garle. His voice rung out to the ends of the room, and a sudden stillness fell upon it; his words may have been taken as a covert reproof to Mrs. Verner. They were not meant as such. There was no living woman of whom Lord Garle thought so highly as he thought of Decima Verner; and he had spoken in his mind's impulse.

Sibylla believed he had purposely flung a shaft at her. And she flung one again—not at him, but at Decima. She was of a terribly jealous nature, and could bear any reproach to herself, better than that another woman should be praised beside her.

"When young ladies find themselves neglected, their charms wasted on the desert air, they naturally do covet attention, although it be but a brother's."

Perhaps the first truly severe glance that Lionel Verner ever gave his wife he gave her then. Disdaining any defence off his sister, he stood, haughty, impassive, his lips drawn in, his eyes fixed sternly on Sibylla. Decima remained quiet under the insult, save that she flushed scarlet. Lord Garle did not. Lord Garle spoke up again, in the impetuosity of his open, honest nature.

"I can testify that if Miss Verner is neglected, it is her own fault alone. You are mistaken in your premises, Mrs. Verner."

The tone was pointedly significant, the words were unmistakably clear, and the room could not but become enlightened to the fact that Miss Verner might have been Lady Garle. Sibylla laughed a little laugh of disbelief, as she went onwards with Sir Rufus Hautley; and Lionel remained enshrined in his terrible mortification. That his wife should so have forgotten herself!

"I must be going off," cried Jan, good-naturedly interrupting the unpleasant silence.

"You have not long come," said Lucy.

"I didn't leave word where I was coming, and somebody may be going dead while they are scouring the parish for me. Good-night to you all; good-night, Miss Lucy."

With a nod to the room, away went Jan as unceremoniously as he had come; and, not very long afterwards, the first carriage drew up. It was Lady Verner's. Lord Garle hastened to Decima, and Lionel took out Lucy Tempest.

"Will you think me very foolish, if I say a word of warning to you?" asked Lucy, in a low tone to Lionel, as they reached the terrace.

"A word of warning to me, Lucy!" he repeated. "Of what nature?"

"That Roy is not a good man. He was greatly incensed at your putting him out of his place when you succeeded to Verner's Pride, and it is said that he cherishes vengeance. He may have been watching to-night for an opportunity to injure you. Take care of him."

Lionel smiled as he looked at her. Her upturned face looked pale and anxious in the moonlight. Lionel could not receive the fear at all: he would as soon have thought to dread the most improbable thing imaginable, as to dread this sort of violence, whether from Roy, or from any one else.

"There's no fear whatever, Lucy."

"I know you will not see it for yourself, and that is the reason why I am presumptive enough to suggest the idea to you. Pray be cautious! pray take care of yourself!"

He shook his head laughingly as he looked down upon her. "Thank you heartily all the same for your consideration, Lucy," said he, and for the very life of him he could not help pressing her hand warmer than was needful as he placed her in the carriage.

They drove away. Lord Garle returned to the room; Lionel stood against one of the outer pillars, looking forth on the lovely moonlight scene. The part played by Roy—if it was Roy—in the night's doings disturbed him not; but that his wife had shown herself so entirely unlike a lady did disturb him. In bitter contrast to Lucy did she stand out to his mind that night. He turned away, after some minutes, with an impatient movement, as if he would fain throw remembrance and vexation from him, Lionel had himself chosen his companion in life, and none knew better than he that he must abide by it; none could be more firmly resolved to do his full duty by her in love. Sibylla was standing outside the window alone. Lionel approached her, and gently laid his hand upon her shoulder.

"Sibylla, what caused you to show agitation when Cannonby's name was mentioned?"

"I told you," answered Sibylla. "It is dreadful to be reminded of that miserable time. It was Cannonby, you know, who buried my husband."

And before Lionel could say more, she had shaken his hand from her shoulder, and was back amidst her guests.



CHAPTER XLVIII.

MR. DAN DUFF IN CONVULSIONS.

Jan had said somebody might be going dead while the parish was being scoured for him; and, in point of fact, Jan found, on reaching home, that that undesirable consummation was not unlikely to occur. As you will find also, if you will make an evening call upon Mrs. Duff.

Mrs. Duff stood behind her counter, sorting silks. Not rich piece silks that are made into gowns; Mrs. Duff's shop did not aspire to that luxurious class of goods; but humble skeins of mixed sewing-silks, that were kept tied up in a piece of wash-leather. Mrs. Duff's head and a customer's head were brought together over the bundle, endeavouring to fix upon a skein of a particular shade, by the help of the one gas-burner which flared away overhead.

"Drat the silk!" said Mrs. Duff at length. "One can't tell which is which, by candle-light. The green looks blue, and the blue looks green. Look at them two skeins, Polly; which is the green?"

Miss Polly Dawson, a showy damsel with black hair and a cherry-coloured net at the back of it—one of the family that Roy was pleased to term the ill-doing Dawsons, took the two skeins in her hand.

"Blest if I can tell!" was her answer. "It's for doing up mother's green silk bonnet, so it won't do to take blue. You be more used to it nor me, Mrs. Duff."

"My eyes never was good for sorting silks by this light," responded Mrs. Duff. "I'll tell you what, Polly; you shall take 'em both. Your mother must take the responsibility of fixing on one herself; or let her keep 'em till the morning and choose it then. She should have sent by daylight. You can bring back the skein you don't use to-morrow; but mind you keep it clean."

"Wrap 'em up," curtly returned Miss Polly Dawson.

Mrs. Duff was proceeding to do so, when some tall thin form, bearing a large bundle, entered the shop in a fluster. It was Mrs. Peckaby. She sat herself down on the only stool the shop contained, and let the bundle slip to the floor.

"Give a body leave to rest a bit, Mother Duff! I be turned a'most inside out."

"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Duff, while Polly Dawson surveyed her with a stare.

"There's a white cow in the pound. I can't tell ye the turn it give me, coming sudden upon it. I thought nothing less, at first glance, but it was the white quadruple."

"What! hasn't that there white donkey come yet?" demanded Polly Dawson; who, in conjunction with sundry others of her age and sex in the village, was not sparing of her free remarks to Mrs. Peckaby on the subject, thereby aggravating that lady considerably.

"You hold your tongue, Polly Dawson, and don't be brazen, if you can help it," rebuked Mrs. Peckaby. "I was so took aback for the minute, that I couldn't neither stir nor speak," she resumed to Mrs. Duff. "But when I found it was nothing but a old strayed wretch of a pounded cow, I a'most dropped with the disappointment. So I thought I'd come back here and take a rest. Where's Dan?"

"Dan's out," answered Mrs. Duff.

"Is he? I thought he might have took this parcel down to Sykes's, and saved me the sight o' that pound again and the deceiver in it. It's just my luck!"

"Dan's gone up to Verner's Pride," continued Mrs. Duff. "That fine French madmizel, as rules there, come down for some trifles this evening, and took him home with her to carry the parcel. It's time he was back, though, and more nor time. 'Twasn't bigger, neither, nor a farthing bun, but 'twas too big for her. Isn't it a-getting the season for you to think of a new gownd, Mrs. Peckaby?" resumed Mother Duff, returning to business. "I have got some beautiful winter stuffs in."

"I hope the only new gownd as I shall want till I gets to New Jerusalem, is the purple one I've got prepared for it," replied Mrs. Peckaby. "I don't think the journey's far off. I had a dream last night as I saw a great crowd o' people dressed in white, a-coming out to meet me. I look upon it as it's a token that I shall soon be there."

"I wouldn't go out to that there New Jerusalem if ten white donkeys come to fetch me!" cried Polly Dawson, tossing her head with scorn. "It is a nice place, by all that I have heard! Them saints—"

A most appalling interruption. Snorting, moaning, sobbing, his breath coming in gasps, his hair standing up on end, his eyes starting, and his face ghastly, there burst in upon them Master Dan Duff. That he was in the very height of terror, there could be no mistaking. To add to the confusion, he flung his arms out as he came in, and his hand caught one of the side panes of glass in the bow window and shattered it, the pieces falling amongst the displayed wares. Dan leaped in, caught hold of his mother with a spasmodic howl, and fell down on some bundles in a corner of the small shop.

Mrs. Duff was dragged down with him. She soon extricated herself, and stared at the boy in very astonishment. However inclined to play tricks out of doors, Mr. Dan never ventured to play them, in. Polly Dawson stared. Susan Peckaby, forgetting New Jerusalem for once, sprang off her stool and stared. But that his terror was genuine, and Mrs. Duff saw that it was, Dan had certainly been treated then to that bugbear of his domestic life—a "basting."

"What has took you now?" sharply demanded Mrs. Duff, partly in curiosity, partly in wrath.

"I see'd a dead man," responded Dan, and he forthwith fell into convulsions.

They shook him, they pulled him, they pinched him. One laid hold of his head, another of his feet; but, make nothing of him, could they. The boy's face was white, his hands and arms were twitching, and froth was gathering on his lips. By this time the shop was full.

"Run across, one of you," cried the mother, turning her face to the crowd, "and see if you can find Mr. Jan Verner."



CHAPTER XLIX.

"I SEE'D A DEAD MAN!"

Jan Verner was turning in at his own door—the surgery—at a swinging pace. Jan's natural pace was a deliberate one; but Jan found so much to do, now he was alone in the business, that he had no resource but to move at the rate of a steam engine. Otherwise he would never have got through his day's work. Jan had tried one assistant, who had proved to be more plague than profit, and Jan was better without him. Master Cheese, promoted now to tail-coats and turn-up collars, was coming on, and could attend to trifling cases. Master Cheese wished to be promoted also to "Mister" Cheese; but he remained obstinately excessively short, and people would still call him "Master." He appeared to grow in breadth instead of height, and underwent, in consequence, a perpetual inward mortification. Jan would tell him he should eat less and walk more; but the advice was not taken.

Jan Verner was turning into the surgery at a swinging pace, and came in violent contact with Master Cheese, who was coming out at another sharp pace. Jan rubbed his chest, and Cheese his head.

"I say, Jan," said he, "can't you look where your going?"

"Can't you look?" returned Jan. "Where are you off to?"

"There's something the matter at Duff's. About a dozen came here in a body, wanting you. Bob says Dan Duff was dying."

Jan turned his eyes on Bob, the surgery-boy. Bob answered the look—

"It's what they said, sir. They said as Dan Duff was a-dying and a-frothing at the mouth. It's about five minutes ago, sir."

"Did you go over?" asked Jan of Cheese. "I saw a crowd round Mrs. Duff's door."

"No, I didn't. I am going now. I was indoors, having my supper."

"Then you need not trouble yourself," returned Jan. "Stop where you are, and digest your supper."

He, Jan, was speeding off, when a fresh deputation arrived. Twenty anxious faces at the least, all in a commotion, their tongues going together. "Dan was frothing dreadful, and his legs was twitchin' like one in the epilepsies."

"What has caused it?" asked Jan. "I saw him well enough an hour or two ago."

"He see a dead man, sir; as it's said. We can't come to the bottom of it, 'cause of his not answering no questions. He be too bad, he be."

"He did see a dead man," put in Polly Dawson, who made one of the deputation, and was proud of being able to add her testimony to the asserted fact. "Leastways, he said he did. I was a-buying some silk, sir, in at Mother Duff's shop, and Susan Peckaby was in there too, she was, a-talking rubbish about her white donkey, when Dan flounders in upon us in a state not to be told, a-frightening of us dreadful, and a-smashing in the winder with his arm. And he said he'd seen a dead man."

Jan could not make sense of the tale. There was nobody lying dead in Deerham, that he knew of. He pushed the crowd round the door right and left to get space to enter. The shop was pretty full already, but numbers pushed in after Jan. Dan had been carried into the kitchen at the back of the shop, and was laid upon the floor, a pillow under his head. The kitchen was more crowded than the shop; there was not breathing space; and room could hardly be found for Jan.

The shop was Mrs. Duff's department. If she chose to pack it full of people to the ceiling, it was her affair: but Jan made the kitchen, where the boy lay, his.

"What's the matter with him, sir?" was the eager question to Jan, the moment he had cast his eyes on the invalid.

"I may be able to ascertain as soon as I have elbow room," replied Jan. "Suppose you give it me. Mrs. Duff may stop, but nobody else."

Jan's easy words carried authority in their tone, and the company turned tail and began to file out.

"Couldn't you do with me in, as well as his mother, sir?" asked Susan Peckaby. "I was here when he came in, I was; and I knowed what it was a'most afore he spoke. He have been frightened by that thing in the pound. Only a few minutes afore, it had turned my inside almost out."

"No, I can't," answered Jan. "I must have the room clear. Perhaps I shall send away his mother."

"I should ha' liked to know for sure," meekly observed Susan Peckaby, preparing to resign herself to her fate. "I hope you'll ask him, sir, when he comes to, whether it were not that thing in the pound as frightened him. I took it for some'at else, more's the grief! but it looks, for all the world, like a ghost in the moonlight."

"What is in the pound?" demanded Jan.

"It's a white cow," responded Susan Peckaby. "And it strikes me as it's Farmer Blow's. He have got a white cow, you know, sir, like he have got a white pony, and they be always a-giving me a turn, one or t'other of 'em. I'd like old Blow to be indicted for a pest, I would! a-keeping white animals to upset folks. It's not a week ago that I met that cow in the road at dusk—strayed through a gap in the hedge. Tiresome beast, a-causing my heart to leap into my mouth!"