"All the same. 'Twas another man's leavings. And there's something about Lionel Verner, with his sensitive refinement, that does not seem to accord with the notion. Is she healthy?"
"Who? Sibylla? I don't fancy she has much of a constitution."
"No, that she has not! There are no children, I hear. Jan, though, you need not have pinched so hard when you pounced upon me," he continued, rubbing his arm. "I was not going to run away."
"How did I know that?" said Jan.
"It's my last night of fun, and when I saw you I said to myself, 'I'll be caught.' How are old Deb and Amilly?"
"Much as usual. Deb's in a fever just now. She has heard that Fred Massingbird's back, and thinks Sibylla ought to leave Lionel on the strength of it."
John laughed again. "It must have put others in a fever, I know, besides poor old Deb. Jan, I can't stop talking to you all night, I should get no more fun. I wish I could appear to all Deerham collectively, and send it into fits after Dan Duff! To-morrow, as soon as I genteelly can after breakfast, I go up to Verner's Pride and show myself. One can't go at six in the morning."
He went off in the direction of Clay Lane as he spoke, and Jan turned to make the best of his way to Verner's Pride.