"I say, Jan," interrupted John Massingbird, with another explosion, "didn't your Achates, Cheese, arrive at home in a mortal fright one night?"
Jan nodded.
"I shall never forget him, never. He was marching up, all bravely, till he saw my face. Didn't he turn tail! There has been one person above all others, Jan, that I have wanted to meet, and have not—your brother Lionel."
"He'd have pinned you," said Jan.
"Not he. You would not have done it to-night, but that I let you do it. No chance of anybody catching me, unless I chose. I was on the look-out for all I met, for all to whom I chose to show myself: they met me unawares. Unprepared for the encounter, while they were recovering their astonishment, I was beyond reach. Last night I had been watching over the gate ever so long, when I darted out in front of Tynn, to astonish him. Jan"—lowering his voice—"has it put Sibylla in a fright?"
"I think it has put Lionel in a worse," responded Jan.
"For fear of losing her?" laughed John Massingbird. "Wouldn't it have been a charming prospect for some husbands, who are tired of their wives! Is Lionel tired of his?"
"Can't say," replied Jan. "There's no appearance of it."
"I should be, if Sibylla had been my wife for two years," candidly avowed John Massingbird. "Sibylla and I never hit it off well as cousins. I'd not own her as wife, if she were dowered with all the gold mines in Australia. What Fred saw in her was always a puzzle to me. I knew what was going on between them, though nobody else did. But, Jan, I'll tell you what astonished me more than everything else when I learned it—that Lionel should have married her subsequently. I never could have imagined Lionel Verner taking up with another man's wife."
"She was his widow," cried literal Jan.