“I do not understand you, Dr. West.  The question cannot arise.”

“If I make it arise; and carry it out?”

“I beg your pardon—­No.”

It was an emphatic denial, and Dr. West may have felt himself foiled; as he had been foiled by Jan’s confession of empty pockets, earlier in the evening.

“Nevertheless,” observed he equably, as he shook hands with Lionel, before entering his own house, “I shall see John Massingbird to-morrow, and urge the hardship of the case upon him.”

It was probably with that view that Dr. West proceeded early on the following morning to Verner’s Pride, after his night of search, instead of sleep, astonishing John Massingbird not a little.  That gentleman was enjoying himself in a comfortable sort of way in his bedroom.  A substantial breakfast was laid out on a table by the bedside, while he, not risen, smoked a pipe as he lay, by way of whetting his appetite.  Dr. West entered without ceremony.

“My stars!” uttered John, when he could believe his eyes.  “It’s never you, Uncle West!  Did you drop from a balloon?”

Dr. West explained.  That he had come over for a few hours’ sojourn.  The state of his dear daughter Sibylla was giving him considerable uneasiness, and he had put himself to the expense and inconvenience of a journey to see her, and judge of her state himself.

That there were a few trifling inaccuracies in this statement, inasmuch as that his daughter’s state had had nothing to do with the doctor’s journey, was of little consequence.  It was all one to John Massingbird.  He made a hasty toilette, and invited the doctor to take some breakfast.

Dr. West was nothing loth.  He had breakfasted at home; but a breakfast more or less was nothing to Dr. West.  He sat down to the table, and took a choice morsel of boned chicken on his plate.

“John, I have come up to talk to you about Verner’s Pride.”

“What about it?” asked John, speaking with his mouth full of devilled kidneys.

“The place is Lionel Verner’s.”

“How d’ye make out that?” asked John.

“That codicil revoked the will which left the estate to you.  It gave it to him.”

“But the codicil vanished,” answered John.

“True.  I was present at the consternation it excited.  It disappeared in some unaccountably mysterious way; but there’s no doubt that Mr. Verner died, believing the estate would go in its direct line—­to Lionel.  In fact, I know he did.  Therefore you ought to act as though the codicil were in existence, and resign the estate to Lionel Verner.”

The recommendation excessively tickled the fancy of John Massingbird.  It set him laughing for five minutes.

“In short, you never ought to have attempted to enter upon it,” continued Dr. West.  “Will you resign it to him?”

“Uncle West, you’ll kill me with laughter, if you joke like that,” was the reply.