"You are Jan, as you used to be, then? I remember Lucy has called you so in her letters to me."
"I shall never be anything but Jan. What does it matter? One name's as good as another. You were asking after Lionel. He has got Verner's Pride again: all in safety now."
"What a very extraordinary course of events seems to have taken place, with regard to Verner's Pride!" remarked Sir Henry. "Now your brother's, now not his, then his again, then not his! I cannot make it out."
"It was extraordinary," assented Jan. "But the uncertain tenure is at an end, and Lionel is installed there for life. There ought never to have been any question of his right to it."
"He has had the misfortune to lose his wife," observed Sir Henry.
"It was not much of a misfortune," returned Jan, always plain. "She was too sickly ever to enjoy life; and I know she must have worried Lionel nearly out of his patience."
Jan had said at the station that Deerham Court was "close by." His active legs may have found it so; but Sir Henry began to think it rather far than close. As they reached the gates Sir Henry spoke.
"I suppose there is an inn near, where I can send my servant to lodge. There may not be accommodation for him at Lady Verner's?"
"There's accommodation enough for that," said Jan. "They have plenty of room, and old Catherine can make him up a bed."
Lady Verner and Lucy were out. They had not returned from the call on Mrs. Bitterworth—for it was the afternoon spoken of in the last chapter. Jan showed Sir Henry in; told him to ring for any refreshment he wanted; and then left.