“There is no mistake, I suppose, Jan?”

“There’s no mistake,” replied Jan.  “I have been talking to him this half-hour.  He is hiding at Roy’s.”

“Why should he be in hiding at all?” inquired Lionel.

“He had two or three motives he said;” and Jan proceeded to give Lionel a summary of what he had heard.  “He was not very explicit to me,” concluded Jan.  “Perhaps he will be more so to you.  He says he is coming to Verner’s Pride to-morrow morning at the earliest genteel hour after breakfast.”

“And what does he say to the fright he has caused?” resumed Lionel.

“Does nothing but laugh over it.  Says it’s the primest fun he ever had in his life.  He has come back very poor, Lionel.”

“Poor?  Then, were Verner’s Pride and its revenues not his, I could have understood why he should not like to show himself openly.  Well! well! compared to what I feared, it is a mercy.  Sibylla is free; and I—­I must make the best of it.  He will be a more generous master of Verner’s Pride—­as I believe—­than Frederick would ever have been.”

“Yes,” nodded Jan.  “In spite of his faults.  And John Massingbird used to have plenty.”

“I don’t know who amongst us is without them, Jan.  Unless—­upon my word, old fellow, I mean it!—­unless it is you.”

Jan opened his great eyes with a wondering stare.  It never occurred to humble-minded Jan that there was anything in him approaching to goodness.  He supposed Lionel had spoken in joke.

“What’s that?” cried he.

Jan alluded to a sudden burst of laughter, to a sound of many voices, to fair forms that were flitting before the windows.  The ladies had gone into the drawing-room.  “What a relief it will be for Sibylla!” involuntarily uttered Lionel.

“She’ll make a face at losing Verner’s Pride,” was the less poetical remark of Jan.

“Will he turn us out at once, Jan?”

“He said nothing to me on that score, nor I to him,” was the answer of Jan.  “Look here, Lionel.  Old West’s a screw, between ourselves; but what I do earn is my own; so don’t get breaking your rest, thinking you’ll not have a pound or two to turn to.  If John Massingbird does send you out, I can manage things for you, if you don’t mind living quietly.”

Honest Jan!  His notions of “living quietly” would have comprised a couple of modest rooms, cotton umbrellas like his own, and a mutton chop a day.  And Jan would have gone without the chop himself, to give it to Lionel.  To Sibylla, also.  Not that he had any great love for that lady, in the abstract; but, for Jan to eat chops, while anybody, no matter how remotely connected with him, wanted them, would have been completely out of Jan’s nature.

A lump was rising in Lionel’s throat. He loved Jan, and knew his worth, if nobody else did.  While he was swallowing it down, Jan went on, quite eagerly.