"Well, I don't know," said Jan, ever plain-spoken. "She puzzles me. When she was at Verner's Pride, she never seemed satisfied. She was perpetually hankering after excitement—didn't seem to care for Lionel, or for anybody else, and kept the house full of people from top to bottom. She has a restless, dissatisfied temper, and it keeps her on the worry. Folks with such tempers know no peace, and let nobody else know any that's about them. A nice life she leads Lionel! Not that he'd drop a hint of it. He'd cut out his tongue before he'd speak a word against his wife; he'd rather make her out to be an angel."
"Are they pretty comfortably off for money?" inquired Dr. West, after a pause. "I suppose Mr. Verner must have managed to feather his nest a little, before leaving?"
"Not a bit of it," returned Jan. "He was over head and ears in debt. Sibylla helped him to a good portion of it. She went the pace. John Massingbird waives the question of the mesne profits, or Lionel would be in worse embarrassment than he is."
Dr. West looked crestfallen. "What do they live on?" he asked. "Does Lady Verner keep them? She can't have too much for herself now."
"Oh! it's managed somehow," said Jan.
Dr. West sat for some time in ruminating silence; pulling his whiskers as before, running his hands through his hair, the large clear blue sapphire ring, which he always wore on his finger, conspicuous. Jan swayed his legs about, and waited to afford any further information. Presently the doctor turned to him, a charming expression of open confidence on his countenance.
"Mr. Jan, I am in great hopes that you will do me a little favour. I have temporary need of a trifle of pecuniary aid—some slight debts which have grown upon me abroad," he added carelessly, with a short cough—"and, knowing your good heart, I have resolved to apply to you. If you can oblige me with a couple of hundred pounds or so, I'll give you my acknowledgment, and return it punctually as soon as I am able."
"I'd let you have it with all the pleasure in life, if I had got it," heartily replied Jan; "but I have not."
"My dear Mr. Jan! Not got it! You must have quite a nice little nest of savings laid by in the bank! I know you never spend a shilling on yourself."
"All I had in the bank, and what I have drawn since, has been handed to my mother. I wanted Lionel and Sibylla to come here: I and Miss Deb arranged it all; and in that case I should have given the money to Miss Deb. But Sibylla refused; she would not come here, she would not go anywhere but to Lady Verner's. So I handed the money to my mother."