ed me more than everything else when I
learned it--that Lionel should have married her subsequently. I never
could have imagined Lionel Verner taking up with another man's wife."

"She was his widow," cried literal Jan.

"All the same. 'Twas another man's leavings. And there's something about
Lionel Verner, with his sensitive refinement, that does not seem to
accord with the notion. Is she healthy?"

"Who? Sibylla? I don't fancy she has much of a constitution."

"No, that she has not! There are no children, I hear. Jan, though, you
need not have pinched so hard when you pounced upon me," he continued,
rubbing his arm. "I was not going to run away."

"How did I know that?" said Jan.

"It's my last night of fun, and when I saw YOU I said to myself, 'I'll
be caught.' How are old Deb and Amilly?"

"Much as usual. Deb's in a fever just now. She has heard that Fred
Massingbird's back, and thinks Sibylla ought to leave Lionel on the
strength of it."

John laughed again. "It must have put others in a fever, I know, besides
poor old Deb. Jan, I can't stop talking to you all night, I should get
no more fun. I wish I could appear to all Deerham collectively, and send
it into fits after Dan Duff! To-morrow, as soon as I genteelly can after
breakfast, I go up to Verner's Pride and show myself. One can't go at
six in the morning."

He went off in the direction of Clay Lane as he spoke, and Jan turned to
make the best of his way to Verner's Pride.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

A THREAT TO JAN.

They had dined unusually late at Verner's Pride that evening, and Lionel
Verner was with his guests, making merry with the best heart he had.
Now, he would rely upon the information given by Captain Cannonby; the
next moment he was feeling that the combined testimony of so many
eye-witnesses must be believed, and that it could be no other than
Frederick Massingbird. Tynn had been with the man face to face only the
previous night; Roy had distinctly asserted that he was back, in life,
from Australia. Whatever _his_ anxiety may have been, his wife seemed at
rest. Full of smiles and gaiety, she sat opposite to him, glittering
gems in her golden hair, shining forth from her costly robes.

"Not out from dinner!" cried Jan, in his astonishment, when he arrived,
and Tynn denied him to Lionel. "Why, it's my supper-time! I must see
him, whether he's at dinner or not. Go and say so, Tynn. Something
important, tell him."

The message brought