"But is Mr. Jan not back yet from Hook's?"

"No, sir, he's not," was the resentful response. "He has never come back at all since he went, and that was at four o'clock this morning. If he had gone to cut off all the arms in the house, he couldn't have been longer! And I wish him joy of it! He'll get no breakfast. They have got nothing for themselves but bread and water."

Lionel left his draught an open question, and departed. As he turned into the principal street again, he saw Master Dan Duff at the door of his mother's shop. A hasty impulse prompted Lionel to question the boy of what he saw that unlucky night; or believed he saw. He crossed over; but Master Dan retreated inside the shop. Lionel followed him.

"Well, Dan! Have you overcome the fright of the cow yet?"

"'Twarn't a cow, please, sir," replied Dan, timidly. "'Twere a ghost."

"Whose ghost?" returned Lionel.

Dan hesitated. He stood first on one leg, then on the other.

"Please, sir, 'twarn't Rachel's," said he, presently.

"Whose then?" repeated Lionel.

"Please, sir, mother said I warn't to tell you. Roy, he said, if I told it to anybody, I should be took and hanged."

"But I say that you are to tell me," said Lionel. And his pleasant tone, combined, perhaps, with the fact that he was Mr. Verner, effected more with Dan Duff than his mother's sharp tone or Roy's threatening one.

"Please, sir," glancing round to make sure that his mother was not within hearing, "'twere Mr. Fred Massingbird's. They can't talk me out on't, sir. I see'd the porkypine as plain as I see'd him. He were--"

Dan brought his information to a summary standstill. Bustling down the stairs was that revered mother. She came in, curtseying fifty times to Lionel. "What could she have the honour of serving him with?" He was leaning over the counter, and she concluded he had come to patronise the shop.

Lionel laughed. "I am a profitless customer, I believe, Mrs. Duff. I was only talking to Dan."

Dan sidled off to the street door. Once there, he took to his heels, out of harm's way. Mr. Verner might begin telling his mother more particulars, and it was as well to be at a safe distance.

Lionel, however, had no intention to betray trust. He stood chatting a few minutes with Mrs. Duff. He and Mrs. Duff had been great friends when he was an Eton boy; many a time had he ransacked her shop over for flies and gut and other fishing tackle, a supply of which Mrs. Duff professed to keep. She listened to him with a somewhat preoccupied manner; in point of fact, she was debating a question with herself.

"Sir," said she, rubbing her hands nervously one over the other, "I should like to make bold to ask a favour of you. But I don't know how it might be took. I'm fearful it might be took as a cause of offence."

"Not by me. What is it?"

"It's a delicate thing, sir, to have to ask about," resumed she. "And I shouldn't venture, sir, to speak to _you_, but that I'm so put to it, and that I've got it in my head it's through the fault of the servants."

She spoke with evident reluctance. Lionel, he scarcely knew why, leaped to the conclusion that she was about to say something regarding the subject then agitating Deerham--the ghost of Frederick Massingbird.

Unconsciously to himself, the pleasant manner changed to one of constraint.

"Say what you have to say, Mrs. Duff."

"Well, sir--but I'm sure I beg a hundred thousand pardings for mentioning of it--it's about the bill," she answered, lowering her voice. "If I could be paid, sir, it 'ud be the greatest help to me. I don't know hardly how to keep on."

No revelation touching the ghost could have given Lionel the surprise imparted by these ambiguous words. But his constraint was gone.

"I do not understand you, Mrs. Duff. What bill?"

"The bill what's owing to me, sir, from Verner's Pride. It's a large sum for me, sir--thirty-two pound odd. I have to keep up my payments for my goods, sir, whether or not, or I should be a bankrupt to-morrow. Things is hard upon me just now, sir; though I don't want everybody to know it. There's that big son o' mine, Dick, out o' work. If I could have the bill, or only part of it, it 'ud be like a God-send."

"Who owes you the bill?" asked Lionel.

"It's your good lady, sir, Mrs. Verner."

"_Who?_" echoed Lionel, his accent quite a sharp one.

"Mrs. Verner, sir."

Lionel stood gazing at the woman. He could not take in the information; he believed there must be some mistake.

"It were for things supplied between the time Mrs. Verner came home after your marriage, sir, and when she went to London in the spring. The French madmizel, sir, came down and ordered some on 'em; and Mrs. Verner herself, sir, ordered others."

Lionel looked around the shop. He did not disbelieve the woman's words, but he was in a maze of astonishment. Perhaps a doubt of the Frenchwoman crossed his mind.

"There's nothing here that Mrs. Verner would wear!" he exclaimed.

"There's many odds and ends of things here, sir, as is useful to a lady's tilette--and you'd be surprised, sir, to find how such things mounts up when they be had continual. But the chief part o' the bill, sir, is for two silk gownds as was had of our traveller. Mrs. Verner, sir, she happened to be here when he called in one day last winter, and she saw his patterns, and she chose two dresses, and said she'd buy 'em of me if I ordered 'em. Which in course I did, sir, and paid for 'em, and sent 'em home. I saw her wear 'em both, sir, after they was made up, and very nice they looked."

Lionel had heard quite enough. "Where is the bill?" he inquired.

"It have been sent in, sir, long ago. When I found Mrs. Verner didn't pay it afore she went away, I made bold to write and ask her. Miss West, she gave me the address in London, and said she wished she could pay me herself. I didn't get a answer, sir, and I made bold to write again, and I never got one then. Twice I have been up to Verner's Pride, sir, since you come home this time, but I can't get to see Mrs. Verner. That French madmizel's one o' the best I ever see at putting folks off. Sir, it goes again the grain to trouble you; and if I could have got to see Mrs.

Verner, I never would have said a word. Perhaps if you'd be so good as to tell her, sir, how hard I'm put to it, she'd send me a little."

"I am sure she will," said Lionel. "You shall have your money to-day, Mrs. Duff."

He turned out of the shop, a scarlet spot of emotion on his cheek.

Thirty-two pounds owing to poor Mrs. Duff! Was it _thoughtlessness_ on Sibylla's part? He strove to beat down the conviction that it was a less excusable error.

But the Verner pride had been wounded to its very core.

CHAPTER LV.

SELF WILL.

Gathered before a target on the lawn, in their archery costume gleaming with green and gold, was a fair group, shooting their arrows in the air.

Far more went into the air than struck the target. They were the visitors of Verner's Pride; and Sibylla, the hostess, was the gayest, the merriest, the fairest among them.

Lionel came on to the terrace, descended the steps, and crossed the lawn to join them--as courtly, as apparently gay, as if that bill of Mrs.

Duff's was not making havoc of his heartstrings. They all ran to surround him. It was not often they had so attractive a host to surround; and attractive men are, and always will be, welcome to women.

A few minutes, a quarter of an hour given to them, an unruffled smoothness on his brow, a smile upon his lips, and then he contrived to draw his wife aside.

"Oh, Lionel, I forgot to tell you," she exclaimed. "Poynton has been here. He knows of the most charming pair of gray ponies, he says. And they can be ours if secured at once."

"I don't want gray ponies," replied Lionel.