Dr. Cannonby had returned, the servant said.  He desired Lionel to walk in, and threw open the door 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 to a letter rack over the mantel-piece, selected three letters from it, and handed them to Lionel.

Back again all the weary way.  His strong suspicions were no longer suspicions now, but confirmed certainties.  The night grew dark; it was not darker than the cloud which had fallen upon his spirit.