Jan received the lecture with the utmost equanimity, with imperturbable good nature. Lionel wound his arms about his wife, gravely and gently; whatever may have been the pain caused by her words, he suppressed it.

"Jan came here to tell me news that quite justified his sending for me, wherever I might be, or however occupied, Sibylla. He has succeeded in solving to-night the mystery which has hung over us; he has discovered who it is that we have been taking for Frederick Massingbird."

"It is not Frederick Massingbird," cried Sibylla, speaking sharply.

"Captain Cannonby says that it cannot be."

"No, it is not Frederick Massingbird--God be thanked!" said Lionel.

"With that knowledge, we can afford to hear who it is bravely; can we not, Sibylla?"

"But why don't you tell me who it is?" she retorted, in an impatient, fretful tone, not having the discernment to see that he wished to prepare her for what was coming. "Can't you speak, Jan, if he won't?

People have no right to come, dressed up in other people's clothes and faces, to frighten us to death. He ought to be transported! Who is it?"

"You will be startled, Sibylla," said Lionel. "It is one whom we have believed to be dead; though it is not Frederick Massingbird."

"I _wish_ you'd tell--beating about the bush like that! You need not stare so, Jan. I don't believe you know."

"It is your cousin, Sibylla; John Massingbird."

A moment's pause. And then, clutching at the hand of Lionel--

"Who?" she shrieked.

"Hush, my dear. It is John Massingbird."

"Not dead! Did he not die?"

"No. He recovered, when left, as was supposed, for dead. He is coming here to-morrow morning, Jan says."

Sibylla let fall her hands. She staggered back to a pillar and leaned against it, her upturned face white in the starlight.

"Is--is--is Verner's Pride yours or his?" she gasped in a low tone.

"It is his."

"His! Neither yours nor mine?"

"It is only his, Sibylla."

She raised her hands again; she began fighting with the air, as if she would beat off an imaginary John Massingbird. Another minute, and her laughter and her cries came forth together, shriek upon shriek. She was in strong hysterics. Lionel supported her, while Jan ran for water; and the gay company came flocking out of the lighted rooms to see.

CHAPTER LXIX.

NO HOME.

People talk of a nine days' wonder. But no nine days' wonder has ever been heard or known, equal to that which fell on Deerham; which went booming to the very extremity of the county's boundaries. Lionel Verner, the legitimate heir--it may so be said--the possessor of Verner's Pride, was turned out of it to make room for an alien, resuscitated from the supposed dead.

Sailors tell us that the rats desert a sinking ship. Pseudo friends desert a falling house. You may revel in these friends in prosperity, but when adversity sets in, how they fall away! On the very day that John Massingbird arrived at Verner's Pride, and it became known that not he, but Mrs. and Mr. Verner must leave it, the gay company gathered there dispersed. Dispersed with polite phrases, which went for nothing.

They were so very sorry for the calamity, for Mr. and Mrs. Verner; if they could do anything to serve them they had only to be commanded. And then they left; never perhaps to meet again, even as acquaintances. It may be asked, what could they do? They could not invite them to a permanent home; saddle themselves with a charge of that sort; neither would such an invitation stand a chance of acceptance. It did not appear they could do anything; but their combined flight from the house, one after the other, did strike with a chill of mortification upon the nerves of Lionel Verner and his wife.

His wife! Ah, poor Lionel had enough upon his hands, looking on one side and another. _She_ was the heaviest weight. Lionel had thanked God in his true heart that they had been spared the return of Frederick Massingbird; but there was little doubt that the return of Frederick would have been regarded by her as a light calamity, in comparison with this. She made no secret of it. Ten times a day had Lionel to curb his outraged feelings, and compress his lips to stop the retort that would rise bubbling up within them. She would openly lament that it was not Frederick who had returned, in which case she might have remained at Verner's Pride!

"You'll not turn them out, Massingbird?" cried Jan, in his straightforward way, drawing the gentleman into the fruit-garden to a private conference. "_I_ wouldn't."

John Massingbird laughed good-humouredly. He had been in the sunniest humour throughout; had made his first appearance at Verner's Pride in bursts of laughter, heartily grasping the hands of Lionel, of Sibylla, and boasting of the "fun" he had had in playing the ghost. Captain Cannonby, the only one of the guests who remained, grew charmed with John, and stated his private opinion in the ear of Lionel Verner that he was worth a hundred such as Frederick.

"How can I help turning them out?" answered he. "_I_ didn't make the will--it was old Daddy Verner."

"You need not act upon the will," said Jan. "There was a codicil, you know, superseding it, though it can't be found. Sibylla's your cousin--it would be a cruel thing to turn her from her home."

"Two masters never answered in a house yet," nodded John. "I'm not going to try it."

"Let them stop in Verner's Pride, and you go elsewhere," suggested Jan.

John Massingbird laughed for five minutes. "How uncommon _young_ you are, Jan!" said he. "Has Lionel been putting you up to try this on?"

Jan swung himself on a tolerably strong branch of the mulberry-tree, regardless of any damage the ripe fruit might inflict on his nether garments, as he answered--

"Knowing Lionel, you needn't ask it, Massingbird. There'd be a difficulty in getting him to stop in Verner's Pride now, but he might be coaxed to do it for the sake of his wife. She'll have a fit of illness if she has to go out of it. Lionel is one to stand by his own to the last; while Verner's Pride was his, he'd have fought to retain its possession, inch by inch; but let ever so paltry a quibble of the law take it from him, and he'd not lift up his finger to keep it. But, I say, I think he might be got to do it for Sibylla."

"I'll tell you a secret, Jan," cried John Massingbird. "I'd not have Sibylla stop in Verner's Pride if she paid me ten thousand a year for the favour. There! And as to resigning Verner's Pride the minute I come into it, nobody but a child or Jan Verner could ever have started so absurd an idea. If anything makes me feel cross, it is the thought of my having been knocking about yonder, when I might have been living in clover here. I'd get up an Ever-perpetual Philanthropic Benefit-my-fellow-creature Society, if I were you, Jan, and hold meetings at Exeter Hall!"

"Not in my line," said Jan, swaying himself about on the bough.

"Isn't it! I should say it was. Why don't you invite Sibylla to your house, if you are so fond of her?"

"She won't come," said Jan.

"Perhaps you have not asked her!"

"I was beginning to ask her, but she flew at me and ordered me to hold my tongue. No, I see it," Jan added, in self-soliloquy, "she'll never come there. I thought she might: and I got Miss Deb to think so.

She'll--she'll--"

"She'll what?" asked John Massingbird.

"She'll be a thorn in Lionel's side, I'm afraid."

"Nothing more likely," acquiesced easy John. "Roses and thorns go together. If gentlemen will marry the one, they must expect to get their share of the other."

Jan jumped off his bough. His projects all appeared to be failing. The more he had dwelt upon his suddenly-thought-of scheme, that Dr. West's house might afford an asylum for Lionel and his wife, the more he had become impressed with its desirability. Jan Verner, though the most unselfish, perhaps it may be said the most improvident of mortals, with regard to himself, had a considerable amount of forethought for the rest of the world. It had struck him, even before it struck Lionel, that, if turned out of Verner's Pride, Lionel would _want_ a home; want it in the broadest acceptation of the word. It would have been Jan's delight to give him one. He, Jan, went home, told Miss Deb the news that it was John Massingbird who had returned, not Frederick, and imparted his views of future arrangements.

Miss Deb was dubious. For Mr. Verner of Verner's Pride to become an inmate of their home, dependent on her housekeeping, looked a formidable affair. But Jan pointed out that, Verner's Pride _gone_, it appeared to be but a choice of cheap lodgings; their house would be an improvement upon that. And Miss Deb acquiesced; and grew to contemplate the addition to her family, in conjunction with the addition Jan proposed to add to her income, with great satisfaction.

_That_ failed. Failed upon Jan's first hint of it to Mrs. Verner.

She--to use his own expression--flew out at him, at the bare hint; and Sibylla Verner could fly out in an unseemly manner when she chose.