"Was he alone?" asked Lionel.
"Captain Cannonby was with him. They were going together up to—I forget, I say, the name of the place—where John died, you know. It was nine or ten days' distance from Melbourne, and they had travelled but a day of it. And I suppose," added Mrs. Verner, with tears in her eyes, "that he'd be put into the ground like a dog!"
Lionel, on this score, could give no consolation. He knew not whether the fact might be so, or not. Jan hoisted himself on to the top of a high bureau, and sat in comfort.
"He'd be buried like a dog," repeated Mrs. Verner. "What do they know about parsons and consecrated ground out there? Cannonby buried him, he says, and then he went back to Melbourne to carry the tidings to Sibylla."
"Sibylla? Was Sibylla not with him when he died?" exclaimed Lionel.
"It seems not. It's sure not, in fact, by the letters. You can read them, Lionel. There's one from her and one from Captain Cannonby."
"It's not likely they'd drag Sibylla up to the diggings," interposed Jan.
"And yet almost as unlikely that her husband would leave her alone in such a place as Melbourne appears to be," dissented Lionel.
"She was not left alone," said Mrs. Verner. "If you'd read the letters, Lionel, you would see. She stayed in Melbourne with a family: friends, I think she says, of Captain Cannonby's. She has written for money to be sent out to her by the first ship, that she may pay her passage home again."
This item of intelligence astonished Lionel more than any other.