“Not at all like one, I fear, Jan,” was her sad answer.

“Well, then, I can tell you for your satisfaction that an angel, coming down from heaven and endued with angel’s powers, wouldn’t have stopped her last night.  She’d have gone in spite of it; in spite of you all.  Her mind was made up to it; and her telling Lionel in the morning that she’d give up going, provided he would promise to take her for a day’s pleasure to Heartburg, was only a ruse to throw the house off its guard.”

Jan passed down; Lucy sat on.  As Jan was crossing the courtyard—­for he actually went out at the front door for once in his life, as he had done the day he carried the blanket and the black tea-kettle—­he encountered John Massingbird.  Mr. John wore his usual free-and-easy costume, and had his short pipe in his mouth.

“I say,” began he, “what’s this tale about Mrs. Lionel?  Folks are saying that she went off to Hautley’s last night, and danced herself to death.”

“That’s near enough,” replied Jan.  “She would go; and she did; and she danced; and she finished it up by breaking a blood-vessel.  And now she is dying.”

“What was Lionel about, to let her go?”

“Lionel knew nothing of it.  She slipped off while he was out.  Nobody was in the house but Lucy Tempest and one or two of the servants.  She dressed herself on the quiet, sent for a fly, and went.”

“And danced!”

“And danced,” assented Jan.  “Her back and shoulders looked like a bag of bones.  You might nearly have heard them rattle.”

“I always said there were moments when Sibylla’s mind was not right,” composedly observed John Massingbird.  “Is there any hope?”

“None.  There has not been hope, in point of fact, for a long while,” continued Jan, “as anybody might have seen, except Sibylla.  She has been obstinately blind to it.  Although her father warned her, when he was here, that she could not live.”

John Massingbird smoked for some moments in silence.  “She was always sickly,” he presently said; “sickly in constitution; sickly in temper.”

Jan nodded.  But what he might further have said was stopped by the entrance of Lionel.  He came in at the gate, looking jaded and tired.  His mind was ill at ease, and he had not been to bed.

“I have been searching for you, Jan.  Dr. West ought to be telegraphed to.  Can you tell where he is?”

“No, I can’t,” replied Jan.  “He was at Biarritz when he last wrote; but they were about to leave.  I expect to hear from him daily.  If we did know where he is, Lionel, telegraphing would be of no use.  He could not get here.”

“I should like him telegraphed to, if possible,” was Lionel’s answer.

“I’ll telegraph to Biarritz, if you like,” said Jan.  “He is sure to have left it, though.”

“Do so,” returned Lionel.  “Will you come in?” he added to John Massingbird.

“No, thank you,” replied John Massingbird.  “They’d not like my pipe.  Tell Sibylla I hope she’ll get over it.  I’ll come again by and by, and hear how she is.”