who had been with Rachel, but Fred."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lionel fell into a reverie. How--but for this mistake of John
Massingbird's, this revelation to his uncle--the whole course of his
life's events might have been changed! Verner's Pride bequeathed to him,
never bequeathed at all to the Massingbirds, it was scarcely likely
that Sibylla, in returning home, would have driven to Verner's Pride.
Had she _not_ driven to it that night, he might never have been so
surprised by his old feelings as to have proposed to her. He might have
married Lucy Tempest; have lived, sheltered with her in Verner's Pride
from the storms of life; he might----

"Will you forgive me, old chap?"

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

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

"No, that I did not, by Jove!" answered John Massingbird. "I don't think
I ever did a