's his affair," said Jan. "It's hard to guess what he may do;
he is one that won't be dictated to. If it were some people's case,
they'd say to Sibylla, 'Now you have got two husbands, choose which
you'll have, and keep to him.'"

"Good heavens, Mr. Jan!" exclaimed Miss Deb, shocked at the loose
sentiments the words appeared to indicate. "And suppose she should
choose the second? Have you thought of the sin? The second _can't_ be
her husband; it would be as bad as those Mormons."

"Looking at it in a practical point of view, I can't see much
difference, which of the two she chooses," returned Jan. "If Fred was
her husband once, Lionel's her husband now; practically I say you know,
Miss Deb."

Miss Deb thought the question was going rather into metaphysics, a
branch of science which she did not understand, and so was content to
leave the controversy.

"Any way, it is dreadful for her," she said, with another shiver. "Oh,
Mr. Jan, do you think it can really be true?"

"_I_ think that there's not a doubt of it," he answered, stopping in his
pounding. "But you need not think so, Miss Deb."

"How am I to help thinking so?" she simply asked.

"You needn't think either way until it is proved. As I suppose it must
be, shortly. Let it rest till then."

"No, Mr. Jan, I differ from you. It is a question that ought to be
sought out and probed; not left to rest. Does Sibylla know it?"

"Not she. Who'd tell her? Lionel won't, I know. It was for her sake that
he bound me to silence."

"She ought to be told, Mr. Jan. She ought to leave her husband--I mean,
Mr. Lionel--this very hour, and shut herself up until the doubt is
settled."

"Where should she shut herself?" inquired Jan, opening his eyes. "In a
convent? Law, Miss Deb! If somebody came and told me I had got two
wives, should you say I ought to make a start for the nearest monastery?
How would my patients get on?"

Rather metaphysical again. Miss Deb drew Jan back to plain details--to
the histories of the various ghostly encounters. Jan talked and pounded;
she sat on her hard seat and listened, her brain more perplexed than it
could have been with any metaphysics known to science. Eleven o'clock
disturbed them, and Miss Deborah started as if she had been shot.

"How could I keep you until this time!" she exclaimed. "And you scarcely
in bed for some nights!"

"Never mind, Miss Deb," answered good-natured Jan. "It's all in the
day's work."

He opened the door fo