Verner. "If you'd read the letters,
Lionel, you would see. She stayed in Melbourne with a family: friends, I
think she says, of Captain Cannonby's. She has written for money to be
sent out to her by the first ship, that she may pay her passage home
again."

This item of intelligence astonished Lionel more than any other.

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

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

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

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

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

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