of the room. Seven or eight people were
sitting in it, waiting. The servant had evidently mistaken him for a
patient, and placed him there to wait his turn with the rest. He took
his card from his pocket, wrote on it a few words, and desired the
servant to carry it to his master.

The man came back with an apology. "I beg your pardon, sir. Will you
step this way?"

The physician was bowing a lady out as he entered the room--a room lined
with books, and containing casts of heads. He came forward to shake
hands, a cordial-mannered man. He knew Lionel by reputation, but had
never seen him.

"My visit was not to you, but to your brother," explained Lionel. "I was
in hopes to have found him here."

"Then he and you have been playing at cross-purposes to-day," remarked
the doctor, with a smile. "Lawrence started this morning for Verner's
Pride."

"Indeed," exclaimed Lionel. "Cross-purposes indeed!" he muttered to
himself.

"He heard some news in Paris which concerned you, I believe, and
hastened home to pay you a visit."

"Which concerned me!" repeated Lionel.

"Or rather Mrs. Massingbird--Mrs. Verner, I should say."

A sickly smile crossed Lionel's lips. Mrs. Massingbird! Was it already
known? "Why," he asked, "did you call her Mrs. Massingbird?"

"I beg your pardon for my inadvertence, Mr. Verner," was the reply of
Dr. Cannonby. "Lawrence knew her as Mrs. Massingbird, and on his return
from Australia he frequently spoke of her to me as Mrs. Massingbird, so
that I got into the habit of thinking of her as such. It was not until
he went to Paris that he heard she had exchanged the name for that of
Verner."

A thought crossed Lionel that _this_ was the news which had taken
Captain Cannonby down to him. He might know of the existence of
Frederick Massingbird, and had gone to break the news to him, Lionel;
to tell him that his wife was not his wife.

"You do not know precisely what his business was with me?" he inquired,
quite wistfully.

"No, I don't. I don't know that it was much beyond the pleasure of
seeing you and Mrs. Verner."

Lionel rose. "If I----"

"But you will stay and dine with me, Mr. Verner?"

"Thank you, I am going back at once. I wished to be home this evening if
possible, and there's nothing to hinder it now."

"A letter or two has come for Lawrence since the morning," observed the
doctor, as he shook hands. "Will you take charge of them for him?"

"With pleasure."

Dr. Cannonby turned