Verner's Pride

"Be so kind as tell Mr. Jan, when he does come in, that I should be glad to speak a word to him, if he can find time to step into the parlour."

Miss Deb turned back as she spoke, ran across through the rain, and sat down in the parlour, as before. She knew that she ought to go up and dress, but she had not spirits for it.

She sat there until Jan entered. Full an hour, it must have been, and she had turned over all points in her mind, what could and what could not be done. It did not appear much that could be. Jan came in, rather wet. On his road from Verner's Pride he had overtaken one of his poor patients, who was in delicate health, and had lent the woman his huge cotton umbrella, hastening on, himself, without one.

"Cheese says you wish to see me, Miss Deb."

Miss Deb turned round from her listless attitude, and asked Mr. Jan to take a chair. Mr. Jan responded by partially sitting down on the arm of one.

"What is it?" asked he, rather wondering.

"I have had a letter from Prussia this morning, Mr. Jan, from my father. He says you and he are about to dissolve partnership; that the practice will be carried on by you alone, on your own account; and that—but you had better read it," she broke off, taking the letter from her pocket, and handing it to Jan.

He ran his eyes over it. Dr. West's was not a plain handwriting, but Jan was accustomed to it. The letter was soon read.

"It's true, Miss Deb. The doctor thinks he shall not be returning to Deerham, and so I am going to take to the whole of the practice," continued Jan, who possessed too much innate good feeling to hint to Miss Deb of any other cause.

"Yes. But—it will place me and Amilly in a very embarrassing position, Mr. Jan," added the poor lady, her thin cheeks flushing painfully. "I—we shall have no right to remain in this house then."

"You are welcome to remain," said Jan.

Miss Deb shook her head. She felt, as she said, that they should have no "right."

"I'd rather you did," pursued Jan, in his good-nature. "What do I and Cheese want with all this big house to ourselves? Besides, if you and Amilly go, who'd see to our shirts and the puddings?"

"When papa went away at first, was there not some arrangement made by which the furniture became yours?"

"No," stoutly answered Jan. "I paid something to him to give me, as he called it, a half-share in it with himself. It was a stupid sort of arrangement, and one that I should never care to act upon, Miss Deb. The furniture is yours; not mine."

"Mr. Jan, you would give up your right in everything, I believe. You will never get rich."

"I shall get as rich as I want to, I dare say," was Jan's answer. "Things can go on just the same as usual, you know, Miss Deb, and I can pay the housekeeping bills. Your stopping here will be a saving," good-naturedly added Jan. "With nobody in the house to manage, except servants, only think the waste there'd be! Cheese would be for getting two dinners a day served, fish, and fowls, and tarts at each."

The tears were struggling in Deborah West's eyes. She did her best to repress them: but it could not be, and she gave way with a burst.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jan," she said. "Sometimes I feel as if there was no longer any place in the world for me and Amilly. You may be sure I would not mention it, but that you know it as well as I do—that there is, I fear, no dependence to be placed on this promise of papa's, to allow us an income. I have been thinking—"

"Don't let that trouble you, Miss Deb," interrupted Jan, tilting himself backwards over the arm of the chair in a very ungraceful fashion, and leaving his legs dangling. "Others will, if he wo—if he can't. Lionel has just been saying that as Sibylla's sisters, he shall see that you don't want."

"You and he are very kind," she answered, the tears dropping faster than she could wipe them away. "But it seems to me the time is come when we ought to try and do something for ourselves. I have been thinking, Mr. Jan, that we might get a few pupils, I and Amilly. There's not a single good school in Deerham, as you know; I think we might establish one."

"So you might," said Jan, "if you'd like it."

"We should both like it. And perhaps you'd not mind our staying on in this house while we were getting a few together; establishing it, as it were. They would not put you out, I hope, Mr. Jan."

"Not they," answered Jan. "I shouldn't eat them. Look here, Miss Deb, I'd doctor them for nothing. Couldn't you put that in the prospectus? It might prove an attraction."

It was a novel feature in a school prospectus, and Miss Deb had to take some minutes to consider it. She came to the conclusion that it would look remarkably well in print. "Medical attendance gratis."

"Including physic," put in Jan.

"Medical attendance gratis, including physic," repeated Miss Deb. "Mr. Jan, it would be sure to take with the parents. I am so much obliged to you. But I hope," she added, moderating her tone of satisfaction, "that they'd not think it meant Master Cheese. People would not have much faith in him, I fear."

"Tell them to the contrary," answered Jan. "And Cheese will be leaving shortly, you know."

"True," said Miss Deb. "Mr. Jan," she added, a strange eagerness in her tone, in her meek, blue eyes, "if we, I and Amilly, can only get into the way of doing something for ourselves, by which we may be a little independent, and look forward to be kept out of the workhouse in our old age, we shall feel as if removed from a dreadful nightmare. Circumstances have been preying upon us, Mr. Jan: the care is making us begin to look old before we might have looked it."

Jan answered with a laugh. That notion of the workhouse was so good, he said. As well set on and think that he should come to the penitentiary! It had been no laughing matter, though, to the hearts of the two sisters, and Miss Deb sat on, crying silently.

How many of these silent tears must be shed in the path through life! It would appear that the lot of some is only made to shed them, and to bear.

CHAPTER XCII.
AT LAST!

Meanwhile the spring was going on to summer—and in the strict order of precedence that conversation of Miss Deb's with Jan ought to have been related before the departure of John Massingbird and the Roys from Deerham. But it does not signify. The Misses West made their arrangements and sent out their prospectuses, and the others left: it all happened in the spring-time. That time was giving place to summer when the father of Lucy Tempest, now Colonel Sir Henry Tempest, landed in England.

In some degree his arrival was sudden. He had been looked for so long, that Lucy had almost given over looking for him. She did believe he was on his road home, by the sea passage, but precisely when he might be expected, she did not know.

Since the marriage of Decima, Lucy had lived on alone with Lady Verner. Alone, and very quietly; quite uneventfully. She and Lionel met occasionally, but nothing further had passed between them. Lionel was silent; possibly he deemed it too soon after his wife's death to speak of love to another, although the speaking of it would have been news to neither. Lucy was a great deal at Lady Hautley's. Decima would have had her there permanently; but Lady Verner negatived it.

They were sitting at breakfast one morning, Lady Verner and Lucy, when the letter arrived. It was the only one by the post that morning. Catherine laid it by Lady Verner's side, to whom it was addressed; but the quick eyes of Lucy caught the superscription.

"Lady Verner! It is papa's handwriting."

Lady Verner turned her head to look at it. "It is not an Indian letter," she remarked.

"No. Papa must have landed."

Opening the letter, they found it to be so. Sir Henry had arrived at Southampton, Lucy turned pale with agitation. It seemed a formidable thing, now it had come so close, to meet her father, whom she had not seen for so many years.

"When is he coming here?" she breathlessly asked.

"To-morrow," replied Lady Verner; not speaking until she had glanced over the whole contents of the letter. "He purposes to remain a day and a night with us, and then he will take you with him to London."

"But a day and a night! Go away then to London! Shall I never come back?" reiterated Lucy, more breathlessly than before.

Lady Verner looked at her with calm surprise. "One would think, child, you wanted to remain in Deerham. Were I a young lady, I should be glad to get away from it. The London season is at its height."

Lucy laughed and blushed somewhat consciously. She thought she should not care about the London season; but she did not say so to Lady Verner. Lady Verner resumed.

"Sir Henry wishes me to accompany you, Lucy. I suppose I must do so. What a vast deal we shall have to think of to-day! We shall be able to do nothing to-morrow when Sir Henry is here."

Lucy toyed with her tea-spoon, toyed with her breakfast; but the capability of eating more had left her. The suddenness of the announcement had taken away her appetite, and a hundred doubts were tormenting her. Should she never again return to Deerham?—never again see Li—

"We must make a call or two to-day, Lucy."

The interruption, breaking in upon her busy thoughts, caused her to start. Lady Verner resumed.

"This morning must be devoted to business; to the giving directions as to clothes, packing, and such like. I can tell you, Lucy, that you will have a great deal of it to do yourself; Catherine's so incapable since she got that rheumatism in her hand. Thérèse will have enough to see to with my things."

"I can do it all," answered Lucy. "I can—"

"What next, my dear? You pack! Though Catherine's hand is painful, she can do something."

"Oh, yes, we shall manage very well," cheerfully answered Lucy. "Did you say we should have to go out, Lady Verner?"

"This afternoon. For one place, we must go to the Bitterworths. You cannot go away without seeing them, and Mrs. Bitterworth is too ill just now to call upon you. I wonder whether Lionel will be here to-day?"

It was a "wonder" which had been crossing Lucy's own heart. She went to her room after breakfast, and soon became deep in her preparations with old Catherine; Lucy doing the chief part of the work, in spite of Catherine's remonstrances. But her thoughts were not with her hands; they remained buried in that speculation of Lady Verner's—would Lionel be there that day?

The time went on to the afternoon, and he had not come. They stepped into the carriage (for Lady Verner could indulge in the luxury of horses again now) to make their calls, and he had not come. Lucy's heart palpitated strangely at the doubt of whether she should really depart without seeing him. A very improbable doubt, considering the contemplated arrival at Deerham Court of Sir Henry Tempest.

As they passed Dr. West's old house, Lady Verner ordered the carriage to turn the corner and stop at the door. "Mr. Jan Verner" was on the plate now, where "West and Verner" used to be. Master Cheese unwillingly disturbed himself to come out, for he was seated over a washhand-basin of gooseberry fool, which he had got surreptitiously made for him in the kitchen. Mr. Jan was out, he said.

So Lady Verner ordered the carriage on, leaving a message for Jan that she wanted some more "drops" made up.

They paid the visit to Mrs. Bitterworth. Mr. Bitterworth was not at home. He had gone to see Mr. Verner. A sudden beating of the heart, a rising flush in the cheeks, a mist for a moment before her eyes, and Lucy was being whirled to Verner's Pride. Lady Verner had ordered the carriage thither, as they left Mrs. Bitterworth's.

They found them both in the drawing-room. Mr. Bitterworth had just risen to leave, and was shaking hands with Lionel. Lady Verner interrupted them with the news of Lucy's departure; of her own.

"Sir Henry will be here to-morrow," she said to Lionel. "He takes Lucy to London with him the following day, and I accompany them."

Lionel, startled, looked round at Lucy. She was not looking at him. Her eyes were averted—her face was flushed.

"But you are not going for good, Miss Lucy!" cried Mr. Bitterworth.

"She is," replied Lady Verner. "And glad enough, I am sure, she must be, to get away from stupid Deerham. She little thought, when she came to it, that her sojourn in it would be so long as this. I have seen the rebellion, at her having to stop in it, rising often."

Mr. Bitterworth went out on the terrace. Lady Verner, talking to him, went also. Lionel, his face pale, his breath coming in gasps, turned to Lucy.

"Need you go for good, Lucy?"

She raised her eyes to him with a shy glance, and Lionel, with a half-uttered exclamation of emotion, caught her to his breast, and took his first long silent kiss of love from her lips. It was not like those snatched kisses of years ago.

"My darling! my darling! God alone knows what my love for you has been."

Another shy glance at him through her raining tears. Her heart was beating against his. Did the glance seem to ask why, then, had he not spoken? His next words would imply that he understood it so.

"I am still a poor man, Lucy. I was waiting for Sir Henry's return, to lay the case before him. He may refuse you to me!"

"If he should—I will tell him—that I shall never have further interest in life," was her agitated answer.

And Lionel's own face was working with emotion, as he kissed those tears away.

At last! at last!

CHAPTER XCIII.
LADY VERNER'S "FEAR."

The afternoon express-train was steaming into Deerham station, just as Jan Verner was leaping his long legs over rails and stones and shafts, and other obstacles apt to collect round the outside of a halting-place for trains, to get to it. Jan did not want to get to the train; he had no business with it. He only wished to say a word to one of the railway-porters, whose wife he was attending. By the time he had reached the platform the train was puffing on again, and the few passengers who had descended were about to disperse.

"Can you tell me my way to Lady Verner's?"

The words were spoken close to Jan's ear. He turned and looked at the speaker. An oldish man with a bronzed countenance and upright carriage, bearing about him that indescribable military air which bespeaks the soldier of long service, in plain clothes though he may be.

"Sir Henry Tempest?" involuntarily spoke Jan, before the official addressed had time to answer the question. "I heard that my mother was expecting you."

Sir Henry Tempest ran his eyes over Jan's face and figure: an honest face, but an ungainly figure; loose clothes that would have been all the better for a brush, and the edges of his high shirt-collar jagged out.

"Mr. Verner?" responded Sir Henry doubtingly.

"Not Mr. Verner. I'm only Jan. You must have forgotten me long ago, Sir Henry."

Sir Henry Tempest held out his hand, "I have not forgotten what you were as a boy; but I should not have known you as a man. And yet—it is the same face."

"Of course it is," said Jan, "Ugly faces, such as mine, don't alter. I will walk with you to my mother's: it is close by. Have you any luggage?"

"Only a portmanteau. My servant is looking after it. Here he is."

A very dark man came up—an Indian—nearly as old as his master. Jan recognised him.

"I remember you!" he exclaimed "It is Batsha."

The man laughed, hiding his dark eyes, but showing his white teeth. "Massa Jan!" he said, "used to call me Bat."

Without the least ceremony, Jan shook him by the hand. He had more pleasant reminiscences of him than of his master. In fact, Jan could only remember Colonel Tempest by name. He, the colonel, had despised and shunned the awkward and unprepossessing boy; but the boy and Bat used to be great friends.

"Do you recollect carrying me on your shoulder, Bat? You have paid for many a ride in a palanquin for me. Riding on shoulders or in palanquins, in those days, used to be my choice recreation. The shoulders and the funds both ran short at times."

Batsha remembered it all. Next to his master, he had never liked anybody so well as the boy Jan.

"Stop where you are a minute or two," said unceremonious Jan to Sir Henry. "I must find one of the porters, and then I'll walk with you."

Looking about in various directions, in holes and corners and sheds, inside carriages and behind trucks, Jan at length came upon a short, surly-looking man, wearing the official uniform. It was the one of whom he was in search.

"I say, Parkes, what is this I hear about your forcing your wife to get up, when I have given orders that she should lie in bed? I went in just now, and there I found her dragging herself about the damp brewhouse. I had desired that she should not get out of her bed."

"Too much bed don't do nobody much good, sir," returned the man in a semi-resentful tone. "There's the work to do—the washing. If she don't do it, who will?"

"Too much bed wouldn't do you good; or me, either; but it is necessary for your wife in her present state of illness. I have ordered her to bed again. Don't let me hear of your interfering a second time, and forcing her up. She is going to have a blister on now."

"I didn't force her, sir," answered Parkes. "I only asked her what was to become of the work, and how I should get a clean shirt to put on."

"If I had got a sick wife, I'd wash out my shirt myself, before I'd drag her out of bed to do it," retorted Jan. "I can tell you one thing, Parkes; that she is worse than you think for. I am not sure that she will be long with you; and you won't get such a wife again in a hurry, once you lose her. Give her a chance to get well. I'll see that she gets up fast enough, when she is fit for it."

Parkes touched his peaked cap as Jan turned away. It was very rare that Jan came out with a lecture; and when he did, the sufferers did not like it. A sharp word from Jan Verner seemed to tell home.

Jan returned to Sir Henry Tempest, and they walked a way in the direction of Deerham Court.

"I conclude all is well at Lady Verner's," remarked Sir Henry.

"Well enough," returned Jan. "I thought I heard you were not coming until to-morrow. They'll be surprised."

"I wrote word I should be with them to-morrow," replied Sir Henry. "But I got impatient to see my child. Since I left India and have been fairly on my way to her, the time of separation has seemed longer to me than it did in all the previous years."

"She's a nice girl," returned Jan. "The nicest girl in Deerham."

"Is she pretty?" asked Sir Henry.

The question a little puzzled Jan. "Well, I think so," answered he. "Girls are much alike for that, as far as I see. I like Miss Lucy's look, though; and that's the chief thing in faces."

"How is your brother, Janus?"

Jan burst out laughing. "Don't call me Janus, Sir Henry. I am not known by that name. They wanted me to have Janus on my door-plate; but nobody would have thought it meant me, and the practice might have gone off."

"You are Jan, as you used to be, then? I remember Lucy has called you so in her letters to me."

"I shall never be anything but Jan. What does it matter? One name's as good as another. You were asking after Lionel. He has got Verner's Pride again: all in safety now."

"What a very extraordinary course of events seems to have taken place, with regard to Verner's Pride!" remarked Sir Henry. "Now your brother's, now not his, then his again, then not his! I cannot make it out."

"It was extraordinary," assented Jan. "But the uncertain tenure is at an end, and Lionel is installed there for life. There ought never to have been any question of his right to it."

"He has had the misfortune to lose his wife," observed Sir Henry.

"It was not much of a misfortune," returned Jan, always plain. "She was too sickly ever to enjoy life; and I know she must have worried Lionel nearly out of his patience."

Jan had said at the station that Deerham Court was "close by." His active legs may have found it so; but Sir Henry began to think it rather far than close. As they reached the gates Sir Henry spoke.

"I suppose there is an inn near, where I can send my servant to lodge. There may not be accommodation for him at Lady Verner's?"

"There's accommodation enough for that," said Jan. "They have plenty of room, and old Catherine can make him up a bed."

Lady Verner and Lucy were out. They had not returned from the call on Mrs. Bitterworth—for it was the afternoon spoken of in the last chapter. Jan showed Sir Henry in; told him to ring for any refreshment he wanted; and then left.

"I can't stay," he remarked. "My day's rounds are not over yet."

But scarcely had Jan reached the outside of the gate when he met the carriage. He put up his hand, and the coachman stopped. Jan advanced to the window, a broad smile upon his face.

"What will you give me for some news, Miss Lucy?"

Lucy's thoughts were running upon certain other news; news known but to herself and to one more. A strangely happy light shone in her soft, brown eyes, as she turned them on Jan; a rich damask flush on the cheeks where his lips had so lately been.

"Does it concern me, Jan?"

"It doesn't much concern anybody else.—Guess."

"I never can guess anything; you know I can't, Jan," she answered, smiling. "You must please tell me."

"Well," said Jan, "there's an arrival. Come by the train."

"Oh, Jan! Not papa?"

Jan nodded.

"You will find him indoors. Old Bat's come with him."

Lucy never could quite remember the details of the meeting. She knew that her father held her to him fondly, and then put her from him to look at her; the tears blinding her eyes and his.

"You are pretty, Lucy," he said, "very pretty. I asked Jan whether you were not, but he could not tell me."

"Jan!" slightingly spoke Lady Verner, while Lucy laughed in spite of her tears. "It is of no use asking Jan anything of that sort, Sir Henry, I don't believe Jan knows one young lady's face from another."

It seemed to be all confusion for some time; all bustle; nothing but questions and answers. But when they had assembled in the drawing-room again, after making ready for dinner, things wore a calmer aspect.

"You must have thought I never was coming home!" remarked Sir Henry to Lady Verner. "I have contemplated it so long."

"I suppose your delays were unavoidable," she answered.

"Yes—in a measure. I should not have come now, but for the relieving you of Lucy. Your letters, for some time past, have appeared to imply that you were vexed with her, or tired of her; and, in truth, I have taxed your patience and good nature unwarrantably. I do not know how I shall repay your kindness, Lady Verner."

"I have been repaid throughout, Sir Henry," was the quiet reply of Lady Verner. "The society of Lucy has been a requital in full. I rarely form an attachment, and when I do form one it is never demonstrative; but I have learned to love Lucy as I love my own daughter, and it will be a real grief to part with her. Not but that she has given me great vexation."

"Ah! In what way?"

"The years have gone on and on since she came to me; and I was in hopes of returning her to you with some prospect in view of the great end of a young lady's life—marriage. I was placed here as her mother; and I felt more responsibility in regard to her establishment in life than I did to Decima's. We have been at issue upon the point, Sir Henry; Lucy and I."

Sir Henry turned his eyes on his daughter: if that is not speaking figuratively, considering that he had scarcely taken his eyes off her. A fair picture she was, sitting there in her white evening dress and her pearl ornaments. Young, lovely, girlish, she looked, as she did the first day she came to Lady Verner's and took up her modest seat on the hearth-rug. Sir Henry Tempest had not seen many such faces as that; he had not met with many natures so innocent and charming. Lucy was made to be admired as well as loved.

"If there is one parti more desirable than another in the whole county, it is Lord Garle," resumed Lady Verner. "The eldest son of the Earl of Elmsley, his position naturally renders him so; but had he neither rank nor wealth, he would not be much less desirable. His looks are prepossessing; his qualities of head and heart are admirable; he enjoys the respect of all. Not a young lady for miles round but—I will use a vulgar phrase, Sir Henry, but it is expressive of the facts—would jump at him. Lucy refused him."

"Indeed," replied Sir Henry, gazing at Lucy's glowing face, at the smile that hovered round her lips.

Lady Verner resumed—

"She refused him in the most decidedly positive manner that you can imagine. She has refused also one or two others. They were not so desirable in position as Lord Garle; but they were very well. And her motive I never have been able to get at. It has vexed me much. I have pointed out to her that when ever you returned home, you might think I had been neglectful of her interests."

"No, no," replied Sir Henry, "I could not fancy coming home to find Lucy married. I should not have liked it. She would have seemed to be gone from me."

"But she must marry some time, and the years are going on," returned Lady Verner.

"Yes, I suppose she must."

"At least, I should say she would, were it anybody but Lucy," rejoined Lady Verner, qualifying her words. "After the refusal of Lord Garle, one does not know what to think. You will see him and judge for yourself."

"What was the motive of the refusal, Lucy?" inquired Sir Henry.

He spoke with a smile, in a gay, careless tone; but Lucy appeared to take the question in a serious light. Her eyelids drooped, her whole face became scarlet, her demeanour almost agitated.

"I did not care to marry, papa," she answered in a low tone. "I did not care for Lord Garle."

"One grievous fear has been upon me ever since, haunting my rest at night, disturbing my peace by day," resumed Lady Verner. "I must speak of it to you, Sir Henry. Absurd as the notion really is, and as at times it appears to me that it must be, still it does intrude, and I should scarcely be acting an honourable part by you to conceal it, sad as the calamity would be."

Lucy looked up in surprise. Sir Henry in a sort of puzzled wonder.

"When she refused Lord Garle, whom she acknowledged she liked, and forbade him to entertain any future hope whatever, I naturally began to look about me for the cause. I could only come to one conclusion, I am sorry to say—that she cared too much for another."

Lucy sat in an agony; the scarlet of her face changing to whiteness.

"I arrived at the conclusion, I say," continued Lady Verner, "and I began to consider whom the object could be. I called over in my mind all the gentlemen she was in the habit of seeing; and unfortunately there was only one—only one upon whom my suspicions could fix. I recalled phrases of affection openly lavished upon him by Lucy; I remembered that there was no society she seemed to enjoy and be so much at ease with as his. I have done what I could since to keep him at arm's length; and I shall never forgive myself for having been so blind. But, you see, I no more thought she, or any other girl, could fall in love with him, than that she could with one of my serving men."

"Lady Verner, you should not say it!" burst forth Lucy, with vehemence, as she turned her white face, her trembling lips, to Lady Verner. "Surely I might refuse to marry Lord Garle without caring unduly for another!"

Lady Verner looked quite aghast at the outburst. "My dear, does not this prove that I am right?"

"But who is it?" interrupted Sir Henry Tempest.

"Alas!—Who! I could almost faint in telling it to you," groaned Lady Verner. "My unfortunate son, Jan."

The relief was so great to Lucy; the revulsion of feeling so sudden; the idea called up altogether so comical, that she clasped her hands one within the other, and laughed out in glee.

"Oh, Lady Verner! Poor Jan! I never thought you meant him. Papa," she said, turning eagerly to Sir Henry, "Jan is downright worthy and good, but I should not like to marry him."

"Jan may be worthy; but he is not handsome," gravely remarked Sir Henry.

"He is better than handsome," returned Lucy. "I shall love Jan all my life, papa; but not in that way."

Her perfect openness, her ease of manner, gave an earnest of the truth with which she spoke; and Lady Verner was summarily relieved of the fear which had haunted her rest.

"Why could you not have told me this before, Lucy?"

"Dear Lady Verner, how could I tell it you? How was I to know anything about it?"

"True," said Lady Verner. "I was simple; to suppose any young lady could ever give a thought to that unfortunate Jan! You saw him, Sir Henry. Only fancy his being my son and his father's!"

"He is certainly not like either of you," was Sir Henry's reply. "Your other son was like both. Very like his father."

"Ah! he is a son!" spoke Lady Verner, in her enthusiasm. "A son worth having; a son that his father would be proud of, were he alive. Handsome, good, noble;—there are few like Lionel Verner. I spoke in praise of Lord Garle, but he is not as Lionel. A good husband, a good son, a good man. His conduct under his misfortunes was admirable."

"His misfortunes have been like a romance," remarked Sir Henry.

"More like that than reality. You will see him presently. I asked him to dine with me, and expect him in momentarily. Ah, he has had trouble in all ways. His wife brought him nothing else."

"Jan dropped a hint of that," said Sir Henry. "I should think he would not be in a hurry to marry again!

"I should think not, indeed. He—Lucy, where are you going?"

Lucy turned round with her crimsoned face. "Nowhere, Lady Verner."

"I thought I heard a carriage stop, my dear. See if it is Lionel."

Lucy walked to the window in the other room. Sir Henry followed her. The blue and silver carriage of Verner's Pride was at the Court gates, Lionel stepping from it. He came in, looking curiously at the gray head next to Lucy's.

"A noble form, a noble face!" murmured Sir Henry Tempest.

He wore still the mourning for his wife. A handsome man never looks so well in other attire. There was no doubt that he divined now who the stranger was, and a glad smile of welcome parted his lips. Sir Henry met him on the threshold, and grasped both his hands.