Lionel stopped in his walk—they were pacing the terrace—and looked at Jan with some surprise; a smile, in his new security, lightening his face.
"There is nobody in the world, Jan, dead or alive, who could bring trouble to me, save Frederick Massingbird. Anybody else may come, so long as he does not."
"Ah! You are thinking only of Sibylla."
"Of whom else should I think?"
"Yourself," replied Jan.
Lionel laughed in his gladness. How thankful he was for his wife's sake ONE alone knew. "I am nobody, Jan. Any trouble coming to me I can battle with."
"Well, Lionel, the returned man is John Massingbird."
"John—Mass—ingbird!"
Of all the birds in the air and the fishes in the sea—as the children say—he was the very last to whom Lionel Verner had cast a thought. That it was John who had returned, had not entered his imagination. He had never cast a doubt on the fact of his death. Bringing the name out slowly, he stared at Jan in very astonishment.
"Well," said he presently, "John is not Frederick."