Lionel looked very much astonished.
"No!" he uttered.
"Fact!" said Jan. "The mother came to me the morning after the flitting, and said she had been seduced away. She wanted to telegraph to Dr. West—"
Jan stopped dead, remembering that Sibylla was present, as well as Lionel. He leaped off the sofa.
"Ah, we shall see them all back some day, if they can only contrive to elude the vigilance of the Mormons. I'm off, Lionel; old Poynton will think I am not coming to-day. Good-bye, Sibylla."
Jan hastened from the room. Lionel stood at the window, and watched him away. Sibylla glided up to her husband, nestling against him.
"Lionel, tell me. Jan never would, though I nearly teased his life out; and Deborah and Amilly persisted that they knew nothing. You tell me."
"Tell you what, my dearest?"
"After I came home in the winter, there were strange whispers about papa and that Chalk Cottage. People were mysterious over it, and I never could get a word of explanation. Jan was the worst; he was coolly tantalising, and it used to put me in a passion. What was the tale told?"
An involuntary darkening of Lionel's brow. He cleared it instantly, and looked down on his wife with a smile.