“Lionel tells me sometimes I am so changed since I went out, that even he would scarcely have known me.  I do not think I am so changed as all that.  I had a great deal of vexation and trouble, and I grew thin.  But I shall soon be well again now.”

A pause.

“You ascertained no certain news of John Massingbird, I hear,” observed Lady Verner.

“Not any.  A gentleman there is endeavouring to trace out more particulars.  I heard—­did Lionel mention to you—­that I heard, strange to say, of Luke Roy, from the family I was visiting—­the Eyres?  Lionel”—­turning to him—­“did you repeat it to Lady Verner?”

“I believe not,” replied Lionel.  He could not say to Sibylla, “My mother would tolerate no conversation on any topic connected with you.”

Another flagging pause.

Lionel, to create a divertisement, raised a remarkably, fine specimen of coral from the table, and carried it to his mother.

“It is beautiful,” he remarked.  “Sibylla brought it home with her.”

Lady Verner allowed that it was beautiful.

“Show it to Lucy,” she said, when she had examined it with interest.  “Lucy, my dear, do you remember what I was telling you the other evening, about the black coral?”

Sibylla rose and approached Lucy with Lionel.

“I am so pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said warmly.  “You only came to Deerham a short while before I was leaving it, and I saw scarcely anything of you.  Lionel has seen a great deal of you, I fancy, though he will not speak of you.  I told him one day it looked suspicious; that I should be jealous of you, if he did not mind.”

It was a foolish speech—­foolish of Sibylla to give utterance to it; but she did so in all singleness of heart, meaning nothing.  Lucy was bending over the coral, held by Lionel.  She felt her own cheeks flush, and she saw by chance, not by direct look, that Lionel’s face had turned a deep scarlet.  Jealous of her!  She continued to admire the coral some little time longer, and then resigned it to him with a smile.

“Thank you, Mr. Verner.  I am fond of these marine curiosities.  We had a good many of them at the rectory.  Mr. Cust’s brother was a sailor.”

Lionel could not remember the time when she had called him “Mr. Verner.”  It was right, however, that she should do so; but in his heart he felt thankful for that sweet smile.  It seemed to tell him that she, at any rate, was heart-whole, that she certainly bore him no resentment.  He spoke freely now.

“You are not looking well, Lucy—­as we have been upon the subject of looks.”

“I?  Oh, I have had another cold since the one Jan cured.  I did not try his remedies in time, and it fastened upon me.  I don’t know which barked the most—­I or Growler.”

“Jan says he shall have Growler here,” remarked Sibylla.

“No, Sibylla,” interposed Lionel; “Jan said he should like to have Growler here, if it were convenient to do so, and my mother would spare him.  A medical man’s is not the place for a barking dog; he might attack the night applicants.”