"How could I keep you until this time!" she exclaimed. "And you scarcely in bed for some nights!"

"Never mind, Miss Deb," answered good-natured Jan. "It's all in the day's work."

He opened the door for her, and then bolted himself in for the night. For the night, that is, if Deerham would allow it to him. Hook's daughter was slowly progressing towards recovery, and Jan would not need to go to her.

Amilly was nodding over the fire, or, rather, where the fire had been, for it had gone out. She inquired with wonder what her sister had been doing, and where she had been. Deborah replied that she had been busy; and they went upstairs to bed.

But not to sleep—for one of them. Deborah West lay awake through the live-long night, tossing from side to side in her perplexity and thought. Somewhat strict in her notions, she deemed it a matter of stern necessity, of positive duty, that Sibylla should retire, at any rate for a time, from the scenes of busy life. To enable her to do this, the news must be broken to her. But how?

Ay, how? Deborah West rose in the morning with the difficulty unsolved. She supposed she must do it herself. She believed it was as much a duty laid upon her, the imparting these tidings to Sibylla, as the separating herself from all social ties, the instant it was so imparted, would be the duty of Sibylla herself. Deborah West went about her occupations that morning, one imperative sentence ever in her thoughts: "It must be done! it must be done!"

She carried it about with her, ever saying it, through the whole day. She shrank, both for Sibylla's sake and her own, from the task she was imposing upon herself; and, as we all do when we have an unpleasant office to perform, she put it off to the last. Early in the morning she had said, I will go to Verner's Pride after breakfast and tell her; breakfast over, she said, I will have my dinner first and go then.

But the afternoon passed on, and she did not go. Every little trivial domestic duty was made an excuse for delaying it. Miss Amilly, finding her sister unusually bad company, went out to drink tea with some friends. The time came for ordering in tea at home, and still Deborah had not gone.

She made the tea and presided at the table. But she could eat nothing—to the inward gratification of Master Cheese. There happened to be shrimps—a dish which that gentleman preferred, if anything, to pickled herrings; and by Miss Deborah's want of appetite he was able to secure her share and his own, including the heads and tails. He would uncommonly have liked to secure Jan's share also; but Miss Deborah filled a plate and put them aside, against Jan came in. Jan's pressure of work caused him of late to be irregular at his meals.

Scarcely was the tea over, and Master Cheese gone, when Mr. Bourne called. Deborah, the one thought uppermost in her mind, closed the door, and spoke out what she had heard. The terrible fear, her own distress, Jan's belief that it was Fred himself, Jan's representation that Mr. Bourne also believed it. Mr. Bourne, leaning forward until his pale face and his iron-gray hair nearly touched hers, whispered in answer that he did not think there was a doubt of it.

Then Deborah did nerve herself to the task. On the departure of the vicar, she started for Verner's Pride and asked to see Sibylla. The servants would have shown her to the drawing-room, but she preferred to go up to Sibylla's chamber. The company were yet in the dining-room.

How long Sibylla kept her waiting there, she scarcely knew. Sibylla was not in the habit of putting herself to inconvenience for her sisters. The message was taken to her—that Miss West waited in her chamber—as she entered the drawing-room. And there Sibylla let her wait. One or two more messages to the same effect were subsequently delivered. They produced no impression, and Deborah began to think she should not get to see her that night.

But Sibylla came up at length, and Deborah entered upon her task. Whether she accomplished it clumsily, or whether Sibylla's ill-disciplined mind was wholly in fault, certain it is that there ensued a loud and unpleasant scene. The scene to which you were a witness. Scarcely giving herself time to take in more than the bare fact hinted at by Deborah—that her first husband was believed to be alive—not waiting to inquire a single particular, she burst out of the room and went shrieking down the stairs, flying into the arms of Lionel, who at that moment had entered.



CHAPTER LXI.

MEETING THE NEWS.

Lionel Verner could not speak comfort to his wife; or, at the best, comfort of a most negative nature. He held her to him in the study, the door locked against intruders. They were somewhat at cross-purposes. Lionel supposed that the information had been imparted to her by Captain Cannonby; he never doubted but that she had been told Frederick Massingbird had returned and was on the scene; that he might come in any moment—even that very present one as they spoke—to put in his claim to her. Sibylla, on the contrary, did not think (what little she was capable of thinking) that Lionel had had previous information of the matter.

"What am I to do?" she cried, her emotion becoming hysterical. "Oh, Lionel! don't you give me up!"

"I would have got here earlier had there been means," he soothingly said, wisely evading all answer to the last suggestion. "I feared he would be telling you in my I absence; better that you should have heard of it from me."

She lifted her face to look at him. "Then you know it!"

"I have known it this clay or two. My journey to-day—"

She broke out into a most violent fit of emotion, shrieking, trembling, clinging to Lionel, calling out at the top of her voice that she would not leave him. All his efforts were directed to stilling the noise. He implored her to be tranquil, to remember there were listeners around; he pointed out that, until the blow actually fell, there was no necessity for those listeners to be made cognisant of it. All that he could do for her protection and comfort, he would do, he earnestly said. And Sibylla subsided into a softer mood, and cried quietly.

"I'd rather die," she sobbed, "than have this disgrace brought upon me."

Lionel put her into the large arm-chair, which remained in the study still, the old arm-chair of Mr. Verner. He stood by her and held her hands, his pale face grave, sad, loving, bent towards her with the most earnest sympathy. She lifted her eyes to it, whispering—

"Will they say you are not my husband?"

"Hush, Sibylla! There are moments, even yet, when I deceive myself into a fancy that it may be somewhat averted. I cannot understand how he can be alive. Has Cannonby told you whence the error arose?"

She did not answer. She began to shake again; she tossed back her golden hair. Some blue ribbons had been wreathed in it for dinner; she pulled them out and threw them on the ground, her hair partially falling with their departure.

"I wish I could have some wine?"

He moved to the door to get it for her. "Don't you let her in, Lionel," she called out as he unlocked it.

"Who?"

"That Deborah. I hate her now," was the ungenerous remark.

Lionel opened the door, called to Tynn, and desired him to bring wine. "What time did Captain Cannonby get here?" he whispered, as he took it from the butler.

"Who, sir?" asked Tynn.

"Captain Cannonby."

Tynn paused, like one who does not understand. "There's no gentleman here of that name, sir. A Mr. Rushworth called to-day, and my mistress asked him to stay dinner. He is in the drawing-room now. There is no other stranger."

"Has Captain Cannonby not been here at all?" reiterated Lionel. "He left London this morning to come."

Tynn shook his head to express a negative. "He has not arrived, sir."

Lionel went in again, his feelings undergoing a sort of revulsion, for there now peeped out a glimmer of hope. So long as the nearly certain conviction on Lionel's mind was not confirmed by positive testimony—as he expected Captain Cannonby's would be—he could not entirely lose sight of all hope. That he most fervently prayed the blow might not fall, might even now be averted, you will readily believe. Sibylla had not been to him the wife he had fondly hoped for; she provoked him every hour in the day; she appeared to do what she could, wilfully to estrange his affection. He was conscious of all this; he was all too conscious that his inmost love was another's, not hers. But he lost sight of himself in anxiety for her; it was for her sake he prayed and hoped. Whether she was his wife by law or not; whether she was loved or hated, Lionel's course of duty lay plain before him now—to shield her, so far as he might be allowed, in all care and tenderness. He would have shed his last drop of blood to promote her comfort; he would have sacrificed every feeling of his heart for her sake.

The wine in his hand, he turned into the room again. A change had taken place in her aspect. She had left the chair, and was standing against the wall opposite the door, her tears dried, her eyes unnaturally bright, her cheeks burning.

"Lionel," she uttered, a catching of the breath betraying her emotion, "if he is alive, whose is Verner's Pride?"

"His," replied Lionel, in a low tone.

She shrieked out, very much after the manner of a petulant child. "I won't leave it!—I won't leave Verner's Pride! You could not be so cruel as to wish me. Who says he is alive? Lionel, I ask you who it is that says he is alive?"

"Hush, my dear! This excitement will do you a world of harm, and it cannot mend the matter, however it may be. I want to know who told you of this, Sibylla. I supposed it to be Cannonby; but Tynn says Cannonby has not been here."

The question appeared to divert her thoughts into another channel. "Cannonby! What should bring him here? Did you expect him to come?"

"Drink your wine, and then I will tell you," he said, holding the glass towards her.

She pushed the wine from her capriciously. "I don't want wine now. I am hot. I should like some water."

"I will get it for you directly. Tell me, first of all, how you came to know of this?"

"Deborah told me. She sent for me out of the drawing-room where I was so happy, to tell me this horrid tale. Lionel"—sinking her voice again to a whisper—"is—he—here?"

"I cannot tell you—"

"But you must tell me," she passionately interrupted. "I will know. I have a right to know it, Lionel."

"When I say I cannot tell you, Sibylla, I mean that I cannot tell you with any certainty. I will tell you all I do know. Some one is in the neighbourhood who bears a great resemblance to him. He is seen sometimes at night; and—and—I have other testimony that he has returned from Australia."

"What will be done if he comes here?"

Lionel was silent.

"Shall you fight him?"

"Fight him!" echoed Lionel. "No."

"You will give up Verner's Pride without a struggle! You will give up me! Then, are you a coward, Lionel Verner?"

"You know that I would give up neither willingly, Sibylla."

Grievously pained was his tone as he replied to her. She was meeting this as she did most other things—without sense or reason; not as a thinking, rational being. Her manner was loud, her emotion violent; but deep and true her grief was not. Depth of feeling, truth of nature, were qualities that never yet had place in Sibylla Verner. Not once, throughout all their married life, had Lionel been so painfully impressed with the fact as he was now.

"Am I to die for the want of that water?" she resumed. "If you don't get it for me I shall ring for the servants to bring it."

He opened the door again without a word. He knew quite well that she had thrown in that little shaft about ringing for the servants, because it would not be pleasant to him that the servants should intrude upon them then. Outside the door, about to knock at it, was Deborah West.

"I must go home," she whispered. "Mr. Verner, how sadly she is meeting this!"

The very thought that was in Lionel's heart. But not to another would he cast a shade of reflection on his wife.

"It is a terrible thing for any one to meet," he answered. "I could have wished, Miss West, that you had not imparted it to her. Better that I should have done it, when it must have been done."

"I did it from a good motive," was the reply of Deborah, who was looking sadly down-hearted, and had evidently been crying. "She ought to leave you until some certainty shall be arrived at."

"Nonsense! No!" said Lionel. "I beg you—I beg you, Miss West, not to say anything more that can distress or disturb her. If the—the—explosion comes, of course it must come; and we must all meet it as we best may, and see then what is best to be done."

"But it is not right that she should remain with you in this uncertainty," urged Deborah, who could be obstinate when she thought she had cause. "The world will not deem it to be right. You should remember this."

"I do not act to please the world. I am responsible to God and my conscience."

"Responsible to—Good gracious, Mr. Verner!" returned Deborah, every line in her face expressing astonishment. "You call keeping her with you acting as a responsible man ought! If Sibylla's husband is living, you must put her away from your side."

"When the time shall come. Until then, my duty—as I judge it—is to keep her by my side; to shelter her from harm and annoyance, petty as well as great."

"You deem that your duty!"

"I do," he firmly answered. "My duty to her and to God."

Deborah shook her head and her hands. "It ought not to be let go on," she said, moving nearer to the study door. "I shall urge the leaving you upon her."

Lionel calmly laid his hand upon the lock. "Pardon me, Miss West. I cannot allow my wife to be subjected to it."

"But if she is not your wife?"

A streak of red came into his pale face. "It has yet to be proved that she is not. Until that time shall come, Miss West, she is my wife, and I shall protect her as such."

"You will not let me see her?" asked Deborah, for his hand was not lifted from the handle.

"No. Not if your object be the motives you avow. Sleep a night upon it, Miss West, and see if you do not change your mode of thinking and come over to mine. Return here in the morning with words of love and comfort for her, and none will welcome you more sincerely than I."

"Answer me one thing, Mr. Verner. Do you believe in your heart that Frederick Massingbird is alive and has returned?"

"Unfortunately I have no resource but to believe it," he replied.

"Then, to your way of thinking I can never come," returned Deborah in some agitation. "It is just sin, Mr. Verner, in the sight of Heaven."

"I think not," he quietly answered. "I am content to let Heaven judge me, and the motives that actuate me; a judgment more merciful than man's."

Deborah West, in her conscientious, but severe rectitude, turned to the hall door and departed, her hands uplifted still. Lionel ordered Tynn to attend Miss West home. He then procured some water for his wife and carried it in, as he had previously carried in the wine.

A fruitless service. Sibylla rejected it. She wanted neither water nor anything else, were all the thanks Lionel received, querulously spoken. He laid the glass upon the table, and, sitting down by her side in all patience, he set himself to the work of soothing her, gently and lovingly as though she had been what she was showing herself—a wayward child.



CHAPTER LXII.

TYNN PUMPED DRY.

Miss West and Tynn proceeded on their way. The side path was dirty, and she chose the middle of the road, Tynn walking a step behind her. Deborah was of an affable nature, Tynn a long-attached and valued servant, and she chatted with him familiarly. Deborah, in her simple good heart, could not have been brought to understand why she should not chat with him. Because he was a servant and she a lady, she thought there was only the more reason why she should, that the man might not be unpleasantly reminded of the social distinction between them.

She pressed down, so far as she could, the heavy affliction that was weighing upon her mind. She spoke of the weather, the harvest, of Mrs. Bitterworth's recent dangerous attack, of other trifling topics patent at the moment to Deerham. Tynn chatted in his turn, never losing his respect of words and manner; a servant worth anything never does. Thus they progressed towards the village, utterly unconscious that a pair of eager eyes were following, and an evil tongue was casting anathemas towards them.

The owner of the eyes and tongue was wanting to hold a few words of private colloquy with Tynn. Could Tynn have seen right round the corner of the pillar of the outer gate when he went out, he would have detected the man waiting there in ambush. It was Giles Roy. Roy was aware that Tynn sometimes attended departing visitors to the outer gate. Roy had come up, hoping that he might so attend them on this night. Tynn did appear, with Miss West, and Roy began to hug himself that fortune had so far favoured him; but when he saw that Tynn departed with the lady, instead of only standing politely to watch her off, Roy growled out vengeance against the unconscious offenders.

"He's a-going to see her home belike," snarled Roy in soliloquy, following them with angry eyes and slow footsteps. "I must wait till he comes back—and be shot to both of 'em!"

Tynn left Miss West at her own door, declining the invitation to go in and take a bit of supper with the maids, or a glass of beer. He was trudging back again, his arms behind his back, and wishing himself at home, for Tynn, fat and of short breath, did not like much walking, when, in a lonely part of the road, he came upon a man sitting astride upon a gate.

"Hollo! is that you, Mr. Tynn? Who'd ha' thought of seeing you out to-night?"

For it was Mr. Roy's wish, from private motives of his own, that Tynn should not know he had been looked for, but should believe the encounter to be accidental. Tynn turned off the road, and leaned his elbow upon the gate, rather glad of the opportunity to stand a minute and get his breath. It was somewhat up-hill to Verner's Pride, the whole of the way from Deerham.

"Are you sitting here for pleasure?" asked he of Roy.

"I'm sitting here for grief," returned Roy; and Tynn was not sharp enough to detect the hollow falseness of his tone. "I had to go up the road to-night on a matter of business, and, walking back by Verner's Pride, it so overcame me that I was glad to bring myself to a anchor."

"How should walking by Verner's Pride overcome you?" demanded Tynn.

"Well," said Roy, "it was the thoughts of poor Mr. and Mrs. Verner did it. He didn't behave to me over liberal in turning me from the place I'd held so long under his uncle, but I've overgot that smart; it's past and gone. My heart bleeds for him now, and that's the truth."

For Roy's heart to "bleed" for any fellow-creature was a marvel that even Tynn, unsuspicious as he was, could not take in. Mrs. Tynn repeatedly assured him that he had been born into the world with one sole quality—credulity. Certainly Tynn was unusually inclined to put faith in fair outsides. Not that Roy could boast much of the latter advantage.

"What's the matter with Mr. Verner?" he asked of Roy.

Roy groaned dismally. "It's a thing that is come to my knowledge," said he—"a awful misfortin that is a-going to drop upon him. I'd not say a word to another soul but you, Mr. Tynn; but you be his friend if anybody be, and I feel that I must either speak or bust."

Tynn peered at Roy's face. As much as he could see of it, for the night was not a very clear one.

"It seems quite a providence that I happened to meet you," went on Roy, as if any meeting with the butler had been as far from his thoughts as an encounter with somebody at the North Pole. "Things does turn out lucky sometimes."

"I must be getting home," interposed Tynn. "If you have anything to say to me, Roy, you had better say it. I may be wanted."

Roy—who was standing now, his elbow leaning on the gate—brought his face nearer to Tynn's. Tynn was also leaning on the gate.

"Have you heered of this ghost that's said to be walking about Deerham?" he asked, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Have you heered whose they say it is?"

Now, Tynn had heard. All the retainers, male and female, at Verner's Pride had heard. And Tynn, though not much inclined to give credence to ghosts in a general way, had felt somewhat uneasy at the ale. More on his mistress's account than on any other score; for Tynn had the sense to know that such a report could not be pleasing to Mrs. Verner, should it reach her ears.

"I can't think why they do say it," replied Tynn, answering the man's concluding question. "For my own part, I don't believe there's anything in it. I don't believe in ghosts."

"Neither didn't a good many more, till now that they have got orakelar demonstration of it," returned Roy. "Dan Duff see it, and a'most lost his senses; that girl of Hook's see it, and you know, I suppose, what it did for her; Broom see it; the parson see it; old Frost see it; and lots more. Not one on 'em but 'ud take their Bible oath, if put to it, that it is Fred Massingbird's ghost."

"But it is not," said Tynn. "It can't be. Leastways I'll never believe it till I see it with my own eyes. There'd be no reason in its coming now. If it wanted to come at all, why didn't it come when it was first buried, and not wait till over two years had gone by?"

"That's the point that I stuck at," was Roy's answer. "When my wife came home with the tales, day after day, that Fred Massingbird's spirit was walking—that this person had seen it, and that person had seen it—'Yah! Rubbish!' I says to her. 'If his ghost had been a-coming, it 'ud have come afore now.' And so it would."

"Of course," answered Tynn. "If it had been coming. But I have not lived to these years to believe in ghosts at last."

"Then, what do you think of the parson, Mr. Tynn?" continued Roy, in a strangely significant tone. "And Broom—he have got his senses about him? How d'ye account for their believing it?"

"I have not heard them say that they do believe it," responded Tynn, with a knowing nod. "Folks may go about and say that I believe it, perhaps; but that wouldn't make it any nearer the fact. And what has all this to do with Mr. Verner?"

"I am coming to it," said Roy. He took a step backward, looked carefully up and down the road, lest listeners might be in ambush; stretched his neck forward, and in like manner surveyed the field On either side the hedge. Apparently it satisfied him, and he resumed his close proximity to Tynn and his meaning whisper. "Can't you guess the riddle, Mr. Tynn?"

"I can't in the least guess what you mean, or what you are driving at," was Tynn's response. "I think you must have been having a drop of drink, Roy. I ask what this is to my master, Mr. Verner?"

"Drink be bothered! I've not had a sup inside my mouth since midday," was Roy's retort. "This secret has been enough drink for me, and meat, too. You'll keep counsel, if I tell it you, Mr. Tynn? Not but what it must soon come out."

"Well?" returned Tynn, in some surprise.

"It's Fred Massingbird fast enough. But it's not his ghost."

"What on earth do you mean?" asked Tynn, never for a moment glancing at the fact of what Roy tried to imply.

"He is come back: Frederick Massingbird. He didn't die, over there."

A pause, devoted by Tynn to staring and thinking. When the full sense of the words broke upon him, he staggered a step or two away from the ex-bailiff.

"Heaven help us, if it's true!" he uttered. "Roy! it can't be!"

"It is," said Roy.

They stood looking at each other by starlight. Tynn's face had grown hot and wet, and he wiped it. "It can't be," he mechanically repeated.

"I tell you it is, Mr. Tynn. Now never you mind asking me how I came to the bottom of it," went on Roy in a sort of defiant tone. "I did come to the bottom of it, and I do know it; and Mr. Fred, he knows that I know it. It's as sure that he is back, and in the neighbourhood, as that you and me is here at this gate. He is alive and he is among us—as certain as that you are Mr. Tynn, and I be Giles Roy."

There came flashing over Tynn's thoughts the scene of that very evening. His mistress's shrieks and agitation when she broke from Miss West; the cries and sobs which had penetrated to their ears when she was shut afterwards in the study with her husband. The unusual scene had been productive of gossiping comment among the servants and Tynn had believed something distressing must have occurred. Not this; he had never glanced a suspicion at this. He remembered the lines of pain which shone out at the moment from his master's pale face, in spite of its impassiveness; and somehow that very face brought conviction to Tynn now, that Roy's news was true. Tynn let his arms fall on the gate again with a groan.

"Whatever will become of my poor mistress?" he uttered.

"She!" slightingly returned Roy. "She'll be better off than him."

"Better off than who?"

"Than Mr. Verner. She needn't leave Verner's Pride. He must."

To expect any ideas but coarse ones from Roy, Tynn could not. But his attention was caught by the last suggestion.

"Leave Verner's Pride?" slowly repeated Tynn. "Must he?—good heavens! must my master be turned from Verner's Pride?"

"Where'll be the help for it?" asked Roy, in a confidential tone. "I tell you, Mr. Tynn, my heart's been a-bleeding for him ever since I heard it. I don't see no help for his turning out. I have been a-weighing it over and over in my mind, and I don't see none. Do you?"

Tynn looked very blank. He was feeling so. He made no answer, and Roy continued, blandly confidential still.

"If that there codicil, that was so much talked on, hadn't been lost, he'd have been all right, would Mr. Verner. No come-to-life-again Fred Massingbird needn't have tried at turning him out. Couldn't it be hunted for again, Mr. Tynn?"

Roy turned the tail of his eye on Tynn. Would his pumping take effect? Mrs. Tynn would have told him that her husband might be pumped dry, and never know it. She was not far wrong. Unsuspicious Tynn went headlong into the snare.

"Where would be the good of hunting for it again—when every conceivable place was hunted for it before?" he asked.

"Well, it was a curious thing, that codicil," remarked Roy. "Has it never been heered on?"

Tynn shook his head. "Never at all. What an awful thing this is, if it's true!"

"It is true, I tell ye," said Roy. "You needn't doubt it. There was a report a short while agone that the codicil had been found, and Matiss had got it in safe keeping. As I sat here, afore you come up, I was thinking how well it 'ud have served Mr. Verner's turn just now, if it was true."

"It is not true," said Tynn. "All sorts of reports get about. The codicil has never been found, and never been heard of."

"What a pity!" groaned Roy, with a deep sigh. "I'm glad I've told it you, Mr. Tynn! It's a heavy secret for a man to carry about inside of him. I must be going."

"So must I," said Tynn. "Roy, are you sure there's no mistake?" he added. "It seems a tale next to impossible."

"Well, now," said Roy, "I see you don't half believe me. You must wait a few days, and see what them days 'll bring forth. That Mr. Massingbird's back from Australia, I'll take my oath to. I didn't believe it at first; and when young Duff was a-going on about the porkypine, I shook him, I did, for a little lying rascal. I know better now."

"But how do you know it?" debated Tynn.

"Now, never you mind. It's my business, I say, and nobody else's. You just wait a day or two, that's all, Mr. Tynn. I declare I am as glad to have met with you to-night, and exchanged this intercourse of opinions, as if anybody had counted me out a bag o' gold."

"Well, good-night, Roy," concluded Tynn, turning his steps towards Verner's Pride. "I wish I had been a hundred miles off, I know, before I had heard it."

Roy slipped over the gate; and there, out of sight, he executed a kind of triumphant dance.

"Then there is no codicil!" cried he. "I thought I could wile it out of him! That Tynn's as easy to be run out as is glass when it's hot."

And, putting his best leg forward, he made his way as fast as he could make it towards his home.

Tynn made his way towards Verner's Pride. But not fast. The information he had received filled his mind with the saddest trouble, and reduced his steps to slowness. When any great calamity falls suddenly upon us, or the dread of any great calamity, our first natural thought is, how it may be mitigated or averted. It was the thought that occurred to Tynn. The first shock over, digested, as may be said, Tynn began to deliberate whether he could do anything to help his master in the strait; and he went along, turning all sorts of suggestions over in his mind. Much as Sibylla was disliked by the old servant—and she had contrived to make herself very much disliked by them all—Tynn could not help feeling warmly the blow that was about to burst upon her head. Was there anything earthly he could do to avert it?—to help her or his master?

He did not doubt the information. Roy was not a particularly reliable person; but Tynn could not doubt that this was true. It was the most feasible solution of the ghost story agitating Deerham; the only solution of it, Tynn grew to think. If Frederick Massingbird——

Tynn's reflections came to a halt. Vaulting over a gate on the other side the road—the very gate through which poor Rachel Frost had glided the night of her death, to avoid meeting Frederick Massingbird and Sibylla West—was a tall man. He came, straight across the road, in front of Tynn, and passed through a gap of the hedge, on to the grounds of Verner's Pride.

But what made Tynn stand transfixed, as if he had been changed into a statue? What brought a cold chill to his heart, a heat to his brow? Why, as the man passed him, he turned his face full on Tynn; disclosing the features, the white, whiskerless cheek, with the black mark upon it, of Frederick Massingbird. Recovering himself as best he could, Tynn walked on, and gained the house.

Mrs. Verner had gone to her room. Mr. Verner was mixing with his guests. Some of the gentlemen were on the terrace smoking, and Tynn made his way on to it, hoping he might get a minute's interview with his master. The impression upon Tynn's mind was that Frederick Massingbird was coming there and then, to invade Verner's Pride: it appeared to Tynn to be his duty to impart what he had heard and seen at once to Mr. Verner.

Circumstances favoured him. Lionel had been talking with Mr. Gordon at the far end of the terrace, but the latter was called to from the drawing-room windows and departed in answer to it. Tynn seized the opportunity; his master was alone.

Quite alone. He was leaning over the outer balustrade of the terrace, apparently looking forth in the night obscurity on his own lands, stretched out before him. "Master!" whispered Tynn, forgetting ceremony in the moment's absorbing agitation, in the terrible calamity that was about to fall, "I have had an awful secret made known to me to-night. I must tell it you, sir."

"I know it already, Tynn," was the quiet response of Lionel.

Then Tynn told—told all he had heard, and how he had heard it; told how he had just seen Frederick Massingbird. Lionel started from the balustrade.

"Tynn! You saw him! Now?"

"Not five minutes ago, sir. He came right on to these grounds through the gap in the hedge. Oh, master! what will be done?" and the man's voice rose to a wail in its anguish. "He may be coming on now to put in his claim to Verner's Pride; to—to—to—all that's in it!"

But that Lionel was nerved to self-control, he might have answered with another wail of anguish. His mind filled up the gap of words, that the delicacy of Tynn would not speak. "He may be coming to claim Sibylla."



CHAPTER LXIII.

LOOKING OUT FOR THE WORST.

The night passed quietly at Verner's Pride. Not, for all its inmates, pleasantly. Faithful Tynn bolted and barred the doors and windows with his own hand, as he might have done on the anticipated invasion of a burglar. He then took up his station to watch the approaches to the house, and never stirred until morning light. There may have run in Tynn's mind some vague fear of violence, should his master and Frederick Massingbird come in contact.

How did Lionel pass it? Wakeful and watchful as Tynn. He went to bed; but sleep, for him, there was none. His wife, by his side, slept all through the night. Better, of course, for her that it should be so; but, that her frame of mind could be sufficiently easy to admit of sleep, was a perfect marvel to Lionel. Had he needed proof to convince him how shallow was her mind, how incapable she was of depth of feeling, of thought, this would have supplied it. She slept throughout the night. Lionel never closed his eyes; his brain was at work, his mind was troubled, his heart was aching. Not for himself. His position was certainly not one to be envied; but, in his great anxiety for his wife, self passed out of sight. To what conflict might she not be about to be exposed! to what unseemly violence of struggle, outwardly and inwardly, might she not expose herself! He knew quite well that, according to the laws of God and man, she was Frederick Massingbird's wife; not his. He should never think—when the time came—of disputing Frederick Massingbird's claim to her. But, what would she do?—how would she act? He believed in his heart, that Sibylla, in spite of her aggravations shown to him, and whatever may have been her preference for Frederick Massingbird in the early days, best cared for him, Lionel, now. He believed that she would not willingly return to Frederick Massingbird. Or, if she did, it would be for the sake of Verner's Pride.

He was right. Heartless, selfish, vain, and ambitious, Verner's Pride possessed far more attraction for Sibylla than did either Lionel or Frederick Massingbird. Allow her to keep quiet possession of that, and she would not cast much thought to either of them. If the conflict actually came, Lionel felt, in his innate refinement, that the proper course for Sibylla to adopt would be to retire from all social ties, partially to retire from the world—as Miss West had suggested she should do now in the uncertainty. Lionel did not wholly agree with Miss West. He deemed that, in the uncertainty, Sibylla's place was by his side, still his wife; but, when once the uncertainty was set at rest by the actual appearance of Frederick Massingbird, then let her retire. It was the only course that he could pursue, were the case his own. His mind was made up upon one point—to withdraw himself out of the way when that time came. To India, to the wilds of Africa—anywhere, far, far away. Never would he remain to be an eye-sore to Sibylla or Frederick Massingbird—inhabiting the land that they inhabited, breathing the air that sustained life in them. Sibylla might rely on one thing—that when Frederick Massingbird did appear beyond doubt or dispute, that very hour he said adieu to Sibylla. The shock soothed—and he would soothe it for her to the very utmost of his power—he should depart. He would be no more capable of retaining Sibylla in the face of her husband, than he could have taken her, knowingly, from that husband in his lifetime.

But where was Frederick Massingbird? Tynn's opinion had been—he had told it to his master—that when he saw Frederick Massingbird steal into the grounds of Verner's Pride the previous evening, he was coming on to the house, there and then. Perhaps Lionel himself had entertained the same conviction. But the night had passed, and no Frederick Massingbird had come. What could be the meaning of it? What could be the meaning of his dodging about Deerham in this manner, frightening the inhabitants?—of his watching the windows of Verner's Pride? Verner's Pride was his; Sibylla was his; why, then, did he not arrive to assume his rights?

Agitated with these and many other conflicting thoughts, Lionel lay on his uneasy bed, and saw in the morning light. He did not rise until his usual hour; he would have risen far earlier but for the fear of disturbing Sibylla. To lie there, a prey to these reflections, to this terrible suspense, was intolerable to him, but he would not risk waking her. The day might prove long enough and bad enough for her, without arousing her to it before her time. He rose, but she slept on still. Lionel did wonder how she could.

Not until he was going out of the room, dressed, did she awake. She awoke with a start. It appeared as if recollection, or partial recollection, of the last night's trouble flashed over her. She pushed aside the curtain, and called to him in a sharp tone of terror.

"Lionel!"

He turned back. He drew the curtain entirely away, and stood by her side. She caught his arm, clasping it convulsively.

"Is it a dreadful dream, or is it true?" she uttered, beginning to tremble. "Oh, Lionel, take care of me! Won't you take care of me?"

"I will take care of you as long as I may," he whispered tenderly.

"You will not let him force me away from you? You will not give up Verner's Pride? If you care for me, you will not."

"I do care for you," he gently said, avoiding a more direct answer. "My whole life is occupied in caring for you, in promoting your happiness and comfort. How I have cared for you, you alone know."

She burst into tears. Lionel bent his lips upon her hot face. "Depend upon my doing all that I can do," he said.

"Are you going to leave me by myself?" she resumed in fear, as he was turning to quit the room. "How do I know but he may be bursting in upon me?"

"Is that all your faith in me, Sibylla? He shall not intrude upon you here; he shall not intrude upon you anywhere without warning. When he does come, I shall be at your side."

Lionel joined his guests at breakfast. His wife did not. With smiling lips and bland brow, he had to cover a mind full of intolerable suspense, an aching heart. A minor puzzle—though nothing compared to the puzzle touching the movements of Frederick Massingbird—was working within him, as to the movements of Captain Cannonby. What could have become of that gentleman? Where could he be halting on his journey? Had his halt anything to do with them, with this grievous business?

To Lionel's great surprise, just as they were concluding breakfast, he saw the close carriage driven to the door, attended by Wigham and Bennet. You may remember the latter name. Master Dan Duff had called him "Calves" to Mr. Verner. If Verner's Pride could not keep its masters, it kept its servants. Lionel knew he had not ordered it; and he supposed his wife to be still in bed. He went out to the men.

"For whom is the carriage ordered, Bennet?"

"For my mistress, I think, sir."

And at that moment Lionel heard the steps of his wife upon the stairs. She was coming down, dressed. He turned in, and met her in the hall. "Are you going out?" he cried, his voice betokening surprise.

"I can't be worried with this uncertainty," was Sibylla's answer, spoken anything but courteously. "I am going to make Deborah tell me all she knows, and where she heard it."

"But——"

"I won't be dictated to, Lionel," she querulously stopped him with. "I will go. What is it to you?"

He turned without a remonstrance, and attended her to the carriage, placing her in it as considerately as though she had met him with a wife's loving words. When she was seated, he leaned towards her. "Would you like me to accompany you, Sibylla?"

"I don't care about it."

He closed the door in silence, his lips compressed. There were times when her fitful moods vexed him above common. This was one. When they knew not but the passing hour might be the last of their union, the last they should ever spend together, it was scarcely seemly to mar its harmony with ill temper. At least, so felt Lionel. Sibylla spoke as he was turning away.

"Of course, I thought you would go with me. I did not expect you would grumble at me for going."

"Get my hat, Bennet," he said. And he stepped in and took his seat beside her.

Courteously, and smiling as though not a shade of care were within ages of him, Lionel bowed to his guests as the carriage passed the breakfast-room windows. He saw that curious faces were directed to him; he felt that wondering comments, as to their early and sudden drive, were being spoken; he knew that the scene of the past evening was affording food for speculation. He could not help it; but these minor annoyances were as nothing, compared to the great trouble that absorbed him. The windows passed, he turned to his wife.

"I have neither grumbled at you for going, Sibylla, nor do I see cause for grumbling. Why should you charge me with it?"

"There! you are going to find fault with me again! Why are you so cross?"

Cross! He cross! Lionel suppressed at once the retort that was rising to his lips; as he had done hundreds of times before.

"Heaven knows, nothing was further from my thoughts than to be 'cross,'" he answered, his tone full of pain. "Were I to be cross to you, Sibylla, in—in—what may be our last hour together, I should reflect upon myself for my whole life afterwards."

"It is not our last hour together!" she vehemently answered. "Who says it is?"

"I trust it is not. But I cannot conceal from myself the fact that it maybe so. Remember," he added, turning to her with a sudden impulse, and clasping both her hands within his in a firm, impressive grasp—"remember that my whole life, since you became mine, has been spent for you; in promoting your happiness; in striving to give you more love than has been given to me. I have never met you with an unkind word; I have never given you a clouded look. You will think of this when we are separated. And, for myself, its remembrance will be to my conscience as a healing balm."

Dropping her hands, he drew back to his corner of the chariot, his head leaning against the fair, white watered silk, as if heavy with weariness. In truth, it was so; heavy with the weariness caused by carking care. He had spoken all too impulsively; the avowal was wrung from him in the moment's bitter strife. A balm upon his conscience that he had done his duty by her in love? Ay. For the love of his inmost heart had been another's—not hers.

Sibylla did not understand the allusion. It was well. In her weak and trifling manner, she was subsiding into tears when the carriage suddenly stopped. Lionel, his thoughts never free, since a day or two, of Frederick Massingbird, looked up with a start, almost expecting to see him.

Lady Verner's groom had been galloping on horseback to Verner's Pride. Seeing Mr. Verner's carriage, and himself inside it, he had made a sign to Wigham, who drew up. The man rode up to the window, a note in his hand.

"Miss Verner charged me to lose no time in delivering it to you, sir. She said it was immediate. I shouldn't else have presumed to stop your carriage."

He backed his horse a step or two, waiting for the answer, should there be any. Lionel ran his eyes over the contents of the note.

"Tell Miss Verner I will call upon her shortly, Philip."

And the man, touching his hat, turned his horse round, and galloped back towards Deerham Court.

"What does she want? What is it?" impatiently asked Sibylla.

"My mother wishes to see me," replied Lionel.

"And what else? I know that's not all," reiterated Sibylla, her tone a resentful one. "You have always secrets at Deerham Court against me."

"Never in my life," he answered. "You can read the note, Sibylla."

She caught it up, devouring its few lines rapidly. Lionel believed it must be the doubt, the uncertainty, that was rendering her so irritable; in his heart he felt inclined to make every allowance for her; more, perhaps, than she deserved. There were but a few lines:—

"Do come to us at once, my dear Lionel! A most strange report has reached us, and mamma is like one bereft of her senses. She wants you here to contradict it; she says she knows it cannot have any foundation.

DECIMA."

Somehow the words seemed to subdue Sibylla's irritation. She returned the note to Lionel, and spoke in a hushed, gentle tone. "Is it this report that she alludes to, do you think, Lionel?"

"I fear so. I do not know what other it can be. I am vexed that it should already have reached the ears of my mother."

"Of course!" resentfully spoke Sibylla. "You would have spared her!"

"I would have spared my mother, had it been in my power. I would have spared my wife," he added, bending his grave, kind face towards her, "that, and all other ill."

She dashed down the front blinds of the carriage, and laid her head upon his bosom, sobbing repentantly.

"You would bear with me, Lionel, if you knew the pain I have here"—touching her chest. "I am sick and ill with fright."

He did not answer that he did bear with her—bear with her most patiently—as he might have done. He only placed his arm round her that she might feel its shelter; and, with his gentle fingers, pushed the golden curls away from her cheeks, for her tears were wetting them.

She went into her sister's house alone. She preferred to do so. The carriage took Lionel on to Deerham Court. He dismissed it when he alighted; ordering Wigham back to Miss West's, to await the pleasure of his mistress.



CHAPTER LXIV.

ENDURANCE.

Lionel had probably obeyed the summons sooner than was expected by Lady Verner and Decima; sooner, perhaps, than they deemed he could have obeyed it. Neither of them was in the breakfast-room: no one was there but Lucy Tempest.

By the very way in which she looked at him—the flushed cheeks, the eager eyes—he saw that the tidings had reached her. She timidly held out her hand to him, her anxious gaze meeting his. Whatever may have been the depth of feeling entertained for him, Lucy was too single-minded not to express all she felt of sympathy.

"Is it true?" were her first whispered words, offering no other salutation.

"Is what true, Lucy?" he asked. "How am I to know what you mean?"

They stood looking at each other. Lionel waiting for her to speak; she hesitating. Until Lionel was perfectly certain that she alluded to that particular report, he would not speak of it. Lucy moved a few steps from him, and stood nervously playing with the ends of her waist-band, the soft colour rising in her cheeks.

"I do not like to tell you," she said simply. "It would not be a pleasant thing for you to hear, if it be not true."

"And still less pleasant for me, if it be true," he replied, the words bringing him conviction that the rumour they had heard was correct. "I fear it is true, Lucy."

"That—some one—has come back?"

"Some one who was supposed to be dead."

The avowal seemed to take from her all hope. Her hands fell listlessly by her side, and the tears rose to her eyes. "I am so sorry!" she breathed. "I am so sorry for you, and for—for——"

"My wife. Is that what you were going to say?"

"Yes, it is. I did not like much to say it. I am truly grieved. I wish I could have helped it!"

"Ah! you are not a fairy with an all-powerful wand yet, Lucy, as we read of in children's books. It is a terrible blow, for her and for me. Do you know how the rumour reached my mother?"

"I think it was through the servants. Some of them heard it, and old Catherine told her. Lady Verner has been like any one wild; but for Decima, she would have started——"

Lucy's voice died away. Gliding in at the door, with a white face and drawn-back lips, was Lady Verner. She caught hold of Lionel, her eyes searching his countenance for the confirmation of her fears, or their contradiction. Lionel took her hands in his.

"It is true, mother. Be brave, for my sake."

With a wailing cry she sat down on the sofa, drawing him beside her. Decima entered and stood before them, her hands clasped in pain. Lady Verner made him tell her all the particulars; all he knew, all he feared.

"How does Sibylla meet it?" was her first question when she had listened to the end.

"Not very well," he answered, after a momentary hesitation. "Who could meet it well?" "Lionel, it is a judgment upon her. She—"

Lionel started up, his brow flushing.

"I beg your pardon, mother. You forget that you are speaking of my wife. She is my wife," he more calmly added, "until she shall have been proved not to be."

No. Whatever may have been Sibylla's conduct to him personally, neither before her face nor behind her back, would Lionel forget one jot of the respect due to her. Or suffer another to forget it; although that other should be his mother.

"What shall you do with her, Lionel?"

"Do with her?" he repeated, not understanding how to take the question.

"When the man makes himself known?"

"I am content to leave that to the time," replied Lionel, in a tone that debarred further discussion.

"I knew no good would come of it," resumed Lady Verner, persistent in expressing her opinion. "But for the wiles of that girl you might have married happily, might have married Mary Elmsley."

"Mother, there is trouble enough upon us just now without introducing old vexations," rejoined Lionel. "I have told you before that had I never set eyes upon Sibylla after she married Frederick Massingbird, Mary Elmsley would not have been my wife."

"If he comes back, he comes back to Verner's Pride?" pursued Lady Verner in a low tone, breaking the pause which had ensued.

"Yes. Verner's Pride is his."

"And what shall you do? Turned, like a beggar, out on the face of the earth?"

Like a beggar? Ay, far more like a beggar than Lady Verner, in her worst apprehension, could picture.

"I must make my way on the earth as I best can," he replied in answer, "I shall leave Europe—probably for India. I may find some means, through my late father's friends, of getting my bread there."

Lady Verner appeared to appreciate the motive which no doubt dictated the suggested course. She did not attempt to controvert it; she only wrung her hands in passionate wailing.

"Oh, that you had not married her! that you had not subjected yourself to this dreadful blight!"

Lionel rose. There were limits of endurance even for his aching heart. Reproaches in a moment of trouble are as cold iron entering the soul.

"I will come in another time when you are more yourself, mother," was all he said. "I could have borne sympathy from you this morning, better than complaint."

He shook hands with her. He laid his hand in silence on Decima's shoulder with a fond pressure as he passed her; her face was turned from him, the tears silently streaming down it. He nodded to Lucy, who stood at the other end of the room, and went out. But, ere he was half-way across the ante-room, he heard hasty footsteps behind him. He turned to behold Lucy Tempest, her hands extended, her face streaming down with tears.

"Oh, Lionel, please not to go away thinking nobody sympathises with you! I am so grieved; I am so sorry! If I can do anything for you, or for Sibylla, to lighten the distress, I will do it."

He took the pretty, pleading hands in his, bending his face until it was nearly on a level with hers. But that emotion nearly over-mastered him in the moment's anguish, the very consciousness that he might be free from married obligations, would have rendered his manner cold to Lucy Tempest. Whether Frederick Massingbird was alive or not, he must be a man isolated from other wedded ties, so long as Sibylla remained on the earth. The kind young face, held up to him in its grief, disarmed his reserve. He spoke out to Lucy as freely as he had done in that long-ago illness, when she was his full confidante. Nay, whether from her looks, or from some lately untouched chord in his memory reawakened, that old time was before him now, rather than the present, as his next words proved.

"Lucy, with one thing and another, my heart is half broken. I wish I had died in that illness. Better for me! Better—perhaps—for you."

"Not for me," said she, through her tears. "Do not think of me. I wish I could help you in this great sorrow!"

"Help from you of any sort, Lucy, I forfeited in my blind wilfulness," he hoarsely whispered. "God bless you!" he added, wringing her hands to pain. "God bless you for ever!"

She did not loose them. He was about to draw his hands away, but she held them still, her tears and sobs nearly choking her.

"You spoke of India. Should it be that land that you choose for your exile, go to papa. He may be able to do great things for you. And, if in his power, he would do them, for Sir Lionel Verner's sake. Papa longs to know you. He always says so much about you in his letters to me."

"You have never told me so, Lucy."

"I thought it better not to talk to you too much," she simply said. "And you have not been always at Deerham."

Lionel looked at her, holding her hands still. She knew how futile it was to affect ignorance of truths in that moment of unreserve; she knew that her mind and its feelings were as clear to Lionel as though she had been made of glass, and she spoke freely in her open simplicity. She knew, probably, that his deepest love and esteem were given to her. Lionel knew it, if she did not; knew it to his very heart's core. He could only reiterate his prayer, as he finally turned from her—"God bless you, Lucy, for ever, and for ever!"



CHAPTER LXV.

CAPTAIN CANNONBY.

Deerham abounded in inns. How they all contrived to get a living, nobody could imagine. That they did jog along somehow, was evident; but they appeared to be generally as void of bustle as were their lazy sign-boards, basking in the sun on a summer's day. The best in the place, one with rather more pretension to superiority than the rest, was the Golden Fleece. It was situated at the entrance to Deerham, not far from the railway station; not far either from Deerham Court; in fact, between Deerham Court and the village.

As Lionel approached it, he saw the landlord standing at its entrance—John Cox. A rubicund man, with a bald head, who evidently did justice to his own good cheer, if visitors did not. Shading his eyes with one hand, he had the other extended in the direction of the village, pointing out the way to a strange gentleman who stood beside him.

"Go as straight as you can go, sir, through the village, and for a goodish distance beyond it," he was saying, as Lionel drew within hearing. "It will bring you to Verner's Pride. You can't mistake it; it's the only mansion thereabouts."

The words caused Lionel to cast a rapid glance at the stranger. He saw a man of some five-and-thirty or forty years, fair of complexion once, but bronzed now by travel, or other causes. The landlord's eyes fell on Lionel.

"Here is Mr. Verner!" he hastily exclaimed. "Sir"—saluting Lionel—"this gentleman was going up to you at Verner's Pride."

The stranger turned, holding out his hand in a free and pleasant manner to Lionel. "My name is Cannonby."

"I could have known it by the likeness to your brother," said Lionel, shaking him by the hand. "I saw him yesterday. I was in town, and he told me you were coming. But why were you not with us last night?"

"I turned aside on my journey to see an old military friend—whom, by the way, I found to be out—and did not get to Deerham until past ten," explained Captain Cannonby. "I thought it too late to invade you, so put up here until this morning."

Lionel linked his arm within Captain Cannonby's, and drew him onwards. The moment of confirmation was come. His mind was in too sad a state to allow of his beating about the bush; his suspense had been too sharp and urgent for him to prolong it now. He plunged into the matter at once.

"You have come to bring me some unpleasant news, Captain Cannonby. Unhappily, it will be news no longer. But you will give me the confirming particulars."

Captain Cannonby looked as if he did not understand. "Unpleasant news?" he repeated.

"I speak"—and Lionel lowered his voice—"of Frederick Massingbird. You know, probably, what I would ask. How long have you been cognisant of these unhappy facts?"

"I declare, Mr. Verner, I don't know what you mean," was Captain Cannonby's answer, given in a hearty tone. "To what do you allude?"

Lionel paused. Was it possible that he—Captain Cannonby—was in ignorance? "Tell me one thing," he said. "Your brother mentioned that you had heard, as he believed, some news connected with me and—and my wife, in Paris, which had caused you to hurry home, and come down to Verner's Pride. What was that news?"

"The news I heard was, that Mrs. Massingbird had become Mrs. Verner. I had intended to find her out when I got to Europe, if only to apologise for my negligence in not giving her news of John Massingbird or his property—which news I could never gather for myself—but I did not know precisely where she might be. I heard in Paris that she had married you, and was living at Verner's Pride."

Lionel drew a long breath. "And that was all?"

"That was all."

Then he was in ignorance of it! But, to keep him in ignorance was impossible. Lionel must ask confirmation or non-confirmation of the death. With low voice and rapid speech he mentioned the fears and the facts. Captain Cannonby gathered them in, withdrew his arm from Lionel's, and stood staring at him.

"Fred Massingbird alive, and come back to England!" he uttered, in bewildered wonder.

"We cannot think otherwise," replied Lionel.

"Then, Mr. Verner, I tell you that it cannot be. It cannot be, you understand. I saw him die. I saw him laid in the grave."

They had not walked on. They stood there, looking at each other, absorbed in themselves, oblivious to the attention that might be fixed on them from any stray passers-by. At that moment there were no passers-by to fix it; the bustle of Deerham only began with the houses, and those they had not yet reached.

"I would give all my future life to believe you," earnestly spoke Lionel; "to believe that there can be no mistake—for my wife's sake."

"There is no mistake," reiterated Captain Cannonby. "I saw him dead; I saw him buried. A parson, in the company halting there, read the burial service over him."

"You may have buried him, fancying he was dead," suggested Lionel, giving utterance to some of the wild thoughts of his imaginings. "And—forgive me for bringing forward such pictures—the mistake may have been discovered in time—and—"

"It could not be," interrupted Captain Cannonby. "I am quite certain he was dead. Let us allow, if you will, for argument's sake, that he was not dead when he was put into the ground. Five minutes' lying there, with the weight of earth upon him, would have effectually destroyed life; had any been left in him to destroy. There was no coffin, you must remember."

"No?"

"Parties to the gold-fields don't carry a supply of coffins with them. If death occurs en route, it has to be provided for in the simplest and most practical form. At least, I can answer that such was the case with regard to Fred Massingbird. He was buried in the clothes he wore when he died."

Lionel was lost in abstraction.

"He died at early dawn, just as the sun burst out to illumine the heavens, and at midday he was buried," continued Captain Cannonby. "I saw him buried. I saw the earth shovelled in upon him; nay, I helped to shovel it. I left him there; we all left him, covered over; at rest for good in this world. Mr. Verner, dismiss this great fear; rely upon it that he was, and is, dead."

"I wish I could rely upon it!" spoke Lionel. "The fear, I may say the certainty, has been so unequivocally impressed upon my belief, that a doubt must remain until it is explained who walks about, bearing his outward appearance. He was a very remarkable-looking man, you know. The black mark on his cheek alone would render him so."

"And that black mark is visible upon the cheek of the person who is seen at night?"

"Conspicuously so. This ghost—as it is taken for—has nearly frightened one or two lives away. It is very strange."

"Can it be anybody got up to personate Fred Massingbird?"

"Unless it be himself, that is the most feasible interpretation," observed Lionel. "But it does not alter the mystery. It is not only in the face and the black mark that the likeness is discernible, but in the figure also. In fact, in all points this man bears the greatest resemblance to Frederick Massingbird—at least, if the eyes of those who have seen him may be trusted. My own butler saw him last night; the man passed close before him, turning his face to him in the moment of passing. He says there can be no doubt that it is Frederick Massingbird."

Captain Cannonby felt a little staggered. "If it should turn out to be Frederick Massingbird, all I can say is that I shall never believe anybody's dead again. It will be like an incident in a drama. I should next expect my old father to come to life, who has lain these twelve years past at Kensal Green Cemetery. Does Mrs. Verner know of this?"

"She does, unfortunately. She was told of it during my absence yesterday. I could have wished it kept from her, until we were at some certainty."

"Oh, come, Mr. Verner, take heart!" impulsively cried Captain Cannonby, all the improbabilities of the case striking forcibly upon him. "The thing is not possible; it is not indeed."

"At any rate, your testimony will be so much comfort for my wife," returned Lionel gladly. "It has comforted me. If my fears are not entirely dispelled, there's something done towards it."

Arrived at the Belvedere Road, Lionel looked about for his carriage. He could not see it. At that moment Jan turned out of the surgery. Lionel asked him if he had seen Sibylla.

"She is gone home," replied Jan. "She and Miss Deb split upon some rock, and Sibylla got into her carriage, and went off in anger."

He was walking away with his usual rapid strides, on his way to some patient, when Lionel caught hold of him. "Jan, this is Captain Cannonby. The friend who was with Frederick Massingbird when he died. He assures me that he is dead. Dead and buried. My brother, Captain Cannonby."

"There cannot be a doubt of it," said Captain Cannonby, alluding to the death. "I saw him die; I helped to bury him."

"Then who is it that walks about, dressed up as his ghost?" debated Jan.

"I cannot tell," said Lionel, a severe expression arising to his lips. "I begin to think with Captain Cannonby; that there can be no doubt that Frederick Massingbird is dead; therefore, he, it is not. But that it would be undesirable, for my wife's sake, to make this doubt public, I would have every house in the place searched. Whoever it may be, he is concealed in one of them."

"Little doubt of that," nodded Jan. "I'll pounce upon him, if I get the chance."

Lionel and Captain Cannonby continued their way to Verner's Pride. The revived hope in Lionel's mind strengthened with every step they took. It did seem impossible, looking at it from a practical, matter-of-fact point of view, that a man buried deep in the earth, and supposed to be dead before he was placed there, could come to life again.

"What a relief for Sibylla!" he involuntarily cried, drawing a long, relieved breath on his own score. "This must be just one of those cases, Captain Cannonby, when good Catholics, in the old days, made a vow to the Virgin of so many valuable offerings, should the dread be removed and turn out to have been no legitimate dread at all."

"Ay. I should like to be in at the upshot."

"I hope you will be. You must not run away from us immediately. Where's your luggage?"

Captain Cannonby laughed. "Talk to a returned gold-digger of his 'luggage'! Mine consists of a hand portmanteau, and that is at the Golden Fleece. I can order it up here if you'd like me to stay with you a few days. I should enjoy some shooting beyond everything."

"That is settled, then," said Lionel. "I will see that you have your portmanteau. Did you get rich at the diggings?"

The captain shook his head. "I might have made something, had I stuck at it. But I grew sick of it altogether. My brother, the doctor, makes a sight of money, and I can get what I want from him," was the candid confession.

Lionel smiled. "These rich brothers in reserve are a terrible drag upon self-exertion. Here we are!" he added, as they turned in at the gates. "This is Verner's Pride."

"What a fine place!" exclaimed Captain Cannonby, bringing his steps to a halt as he gazed at it.

"Yes, it is. Not a pleasant prospect, was it, to contemplate the being turned out of it by a dead man."

"A dead—You do not mean to say that Frederick Massingbird—if in life—would be the owner of Verner's Pride?"

"Yes, he would be. I was its rightful heir, and why my uncle willed it away from me, to one who was no blood relation, has remained a mystery to this day. Frederick Massingbird succeeded, to my exclusion. I only came into it at his death."

Captain Cannonby appeared completely thunderstruck at the revelation. "Why, then," he cried, after a pause, "this may supply the very motive-power that is wanting, for one to personate Fred Massingbird."

"Scarcely," replied Lionel. "No ghost, or seeming ghost, walking about in secret at night, could get Verner's Pride resigned to him. He must come forward in the broad face of day, and establish his identity by indisputable proof."

"True, true. Well, it is a curious tale! I should like, as I say, to witness the winding-up."

Lionel looked about for his wife. He could not find her. But few of their guests were in the rooms; they had dispersed somewhere or other. He went up to Sibylla's dressing-room, but she was not there. Mademoiselle Benoite was coming along the corridor as he left it again.

"Do you know where your mistress is?" he asked.

"Mais certainement," responded mademoiselle. "Monsieur will find madam at the archerie."

He bent his steps to the targets. On the lawn, flitting amidst the other fair archers, in her dress of green and gold, was Sibylla. All traces of care had vanished from her face, her voice was of the merriest, her step of the fleetest, her laugh of the lightest. Truly, Lionel marvelled. There flashed into his mind the grieving face of another, whom he had not long ago parted from; grieving for their woes. Better for his mind's peace that these contrasts had not been forced so continually upon him.

Could she, in some unaccountable manner, have heard the consoling news that Cannonby brought? In the first moment, he thought it must be so: in the next, he knew it to be impossible. Smothering down a sigh, he went forward, and drew her apart from the rest; choosing that covered walk where he had spoken to her a day or two previously, regarding Mrs. Duff's bill. Taking her hands in his, he stood before her, looking with a reassuring smile into her face.

"What will you give me for some good news, Sibylla?"

"What about?" she rejoined.

"Need you ask? There is only one point upon which news could greatly interest either of us, just now. I have seen Cannonby. He is here, and—"

"Here! At Verner's Pride?" she interrupted. "Oh, I shall like to see Cannonby; to talk over old Australian times with him."

Who was to account for her capricious moods? Lionel remembered the evening, during the very moon not yet dark to the earth, when Sibylla had made a scene in the drawing-room, saying she could not bear to hear the name of Cannonby, or to be reminded of the past days in Melbourne. She was turning to fly to the house, but Lionel caught her.

"Wait, wait, Sibylla! Will you not hear the good tidings I have for you? Cannonby says there cannot be a doubt that Frederick Massingbird is dead. He left him dead and buried, as he told you in Melbourne. We have been terrified and pained—I trust—for nothing."

"Lionel, look here," said she, receiving the assurance in the same equable manner that she might have heard him assert it was a fine day, or a wet one, "I have been making up my mind not to let this bother worry me. That wretched old maid Deborah went on to me with such rubbish this morning about leaving you, about leaving Verner's Pride, that she vexed me to anger. I came home and cried; and Benoite found me lying upon the sofa; and when I told her what it was, she said the best plan was, not to mind, to meet it with a laugh, instead of tears—"

"Sibylla!" he interposed in a tone of pain. "You surely did not make a confidante of Benoite!"

"Of course I did," she answered, looking as if surprised at his question, his tone. "Why not? Benoite cheered me up, I can tell you, better than you do. 'What matter to cry?' she asked. 'If he does come back, you will still be the mistress of Verner's Pride.' And so I shall."

Lionel let go her hands. She sped off to the house, eager to find Captain Cannonby. He—her husband—leaned against the trunk of a tree, bitter mortification in his face, bitter humiliation in his heart. Was this the wife to whom he had bound himself for ever? Well could he echo in that moment Lady Verner's reiterated assertion, that she was not worthy of him. With a stifled sigh that was more like a groan, he turned to follow her.

"Be still, be still!" he murmured, beating his hand upon his bosom, that he might still its pain. "Let me bear on, doing my duty by her always in love!"

That pretty Mrs. Jocelyn ran up to Lionel, and intercepted his path. Mrs. Jocelyn would have liked to intercept it more frequently than she did, if she had but received a little encouragement. She tried hard for it, but it never came. One habit, at any rate, Lionel Verner had not acquired, amid the many strange examples of an artificial age—that of not paying considerate respect, both in semblance and reality, to other men's wives.

"Oh, Mr. Verner, what a truant you are! You never come to pick up our arrows."

"Don't I?" said Lionel, with his courteous smile. "I will come presently if I can. I am in search of Mrs. Verner. She is gone in to welcome a friend who has arrived."

And Mrs. Jocelyn had to go back to the targets alone.



CHAPTER LXVI.

"DON'T THROTTLE ME, JAN!"

There was a good deal of sickness at present in Deerham: there generally was in the autumn season. Many a time did Jan wish he could be master of Verner's Pride just for twelve months, or of any other "Pride" whose revenues were sufficient to remedy the evils existing in the poor dwellings: the ill accommodation, inside; the ill draining, out. Jan, had that desirable consummation arrived, would not have wasted time in thinking over it; he would have commenced the work in the same hour with his own hands. However, Jan, like most of us, had not to do with things as they might be, but with things as they were. The sickness was great, and Jan, in spite of his horse's help, was, as he often said, nearly worked off his legs.

He had been hastening to a patient when encountered by Lionel and Captain Cannonby. From that patient he had to hasten to others, in a succession of relays, as it were, all day long; sometimes his own legs in requisition, sometimes the horse's. About seven o'clock he got home to tea, at which Miss Deborah made him comfortable. Truth to say, Miss Deborah felt rather inclined to pet Jan as a son. He had gone there a boy, and Miss Deb, though the years since had stolen on and on, and had changed Jan into a man, had not allowed her ideas to keep pace with them. So do we cheat ourselves! There were times when a qualm of conscience came over Miss Deb. Remembering how hard Jan worked, and that her father took more than the lion's share of the profits, it appeared to her scarcely fair. Not that she could alter it, poor thing! All she could do was to be as economical as possible, and to study Jan's comforts. Now and again she had been compelled to go to Jan for money, over and above the stipulated sum paid to her. Jan gave it as freely and readily as he would have filled Miss Amilly's glass pot with castor oil. But Deborah West knew that it came out of Jan's own pocket; and, to ask for it, went terribly against her feelings and her sense of justice.

The tea was over. But she took care of Jan's—some nice tea, and toasted tea-cakes, and a plate of ham. Jan sat down by the fire, and, as Miss Deb said, took it in comfort. Truth to say, had Jan found only the remains of the teapot, and stale bread-and-butter, he might have thought it comfortable enough for him; he would not have grumbled had he found nothing.

"Any fresh messages in, do you know, Miss Deb?" he inquired.

"Now, do pray get your tea in peace, Mr. Jan, and don't worry yourself over 'fresh messages,'" responded Miss Deb. "Master Cheese was called out to the surgery at tea-time, but I suppose it was nothing particular, for he was back again directly."

"Of course!" cried Jan. "He'd not lose his tea without a fight for it."

Jan finished his tea and departed to the surgery, catching sight of the coat-tails of Mr. Bitterworth's servant leaving it. Master Cheese was seated with the leech basin before him. It was filled with Orleans plums, of which he was eating with uncommon satisfaction. Liking variations of flavour in fruit, he occasionally diversified the plums with a sour codlin apple, a dozen or so of which he had stowed away in his trousers' pockets. Bob stood at a respectful distance, his eyes wandering to the tempting collation, and his mouth watering. Amongst the apples Master Cheese had come upon one three parts eaten away by the grubs, and this he benevolently threw to Bob. Bob had disposed of it, and was now vainly longing for more.

"What did Bitterworth's man want?" inquired Jan of Master Cheese.

"The missis is took bad again, he says," responded that gentleman, as distinctly as he could speak for the apples and the plums: "croup, or something. Not as violent as it was before. Can wait."

"You had better go up at once," was Jan's reply.

Master Cheese was taken aback. "I go up!" he repeated, pulling a face as long as his arm. "All that way! I had to go to Baker's and to Flint's between dinner and tea."

"And to how many Bakers and Flints do I have to go between dinner and tea?" retorted Jan. "You know what to give Mrs. Bitterworth. So start."

Master Cheese felt aggrieved beyond everything. For one thing, it might be dangerous to leave those cherished plums in the leech basin, Bob being within arm's length of them; for another, Master Cheese liked his ease better than walking. He cast some imploring glances at Jan, but they produced no effect, so he had to get his hat. Vacillating between the toll that might be taken of the plums if he left them, and the damage to his hair if he took them, he finally decided on the latter course. Emptying the plums into his hat, he put it on his head. Jan was looking over what they termed the call-book.

"Miss Deb says you were called out at tea-time," observed Jan, as Master Cheese was departing. "Who was it?"

"Nobody but old Hook. The girl was worse."

"What! Alice? Why have you not got it down here?" pointing to the book.

"Oh, they are nobody," grumbled Master Cheese. "I wonder the paupers are not ashamed to come here to our faces, asking for attendance and physic! I They know they'll never pay."

"That's my business," said Jan, "Did he say she was very ill?"

"'Took dangerous,' he said," returned Master Cheese. "Thought she'd not live the night out."

Indefatigable Jan put on his hat, and went out with Master Cheese. Master Cheese turned leisurely towards Mr. Bitterworth's; Jan cut across the road at a strapping pace, and took the nearest way to Hook's cottage. It led him past the retired spot where he and the Reverend Mr. Bourne had found Alice lying that former night.

Barely had Jan gained it when some tall, dark form came pushing through the trees at right angles, and was striding off to the distance. One single moment's indecision—for Jan was not sure at first in the uncertain light—and then he put his long legs to their utmost speed, bore down, and pinned the intruder.

"Now, then!" said Jan, "ghost or no ghost, who are you?"

He was answered by a laugh, and some joking words—

"Don't throttle me quite, Jan. Even a ghost can't stand that."

The tone of the laugh, the tone of the voice, fell upon Jan Verner's ears with the most intense astonishment. He peered into the speaker's face with his keen eyes, and gave vent to an exclamation. In spite of the whiskerless cheeks, the elaborate black mark, in spite of the strange likeness to his brother, Jan recognised the features, not of Frederick, but of John Massingbird.



CHAPTER LXVII.

DRESSING UP FOR A GHOST.

And so the mystery was out. And the ghost proved to be no ghost at all—to be no husband of Sibylla—come to disturb the peace of her and of Lionel; but John Massingbird in real flesh and blood.

There was so much explanation to ask and to be given, that Jan was somewhat hindered on his way to Hook's.

"I can't stop," said he, in the midst of a long sentence of John's. "Alice Hook may be dying. Will you remain here until I come back?"

"If you are not long," responded John Massingbird. "I intend this to be the last night of my concealment, and I want to go about, terrifying the natives. The fun it has been!"

"Fun, you call it?" remarked Jan. "If Hook's girl does die, it will lie at your door."

"She won't die," lightly answered John. "I'll send her a ten-pound note to make amends. Make you haste, Jan, if I am to wait."

Jan sped off to Hook's. He found the girl very ill, but not so much so as Cheese had intimated. Some unseemly quarrel had taken place in the cottage, which had agitated her.

"There's no danger," mentally soliloquised Jan, "but it has thrown her back a good two days."

He found John Massingbird—restless John!—restless as ever!—pacing before the trees with hasty strides, and bursting into explosions of laughter.

"Some woman was coming along from one of the cottages by Broom's and I appeared to her, and sent her on, howling," he explained to Jan. "I think it was Mother Sykes. The sport this ghost affair has been!"

He sat down on a bench, held his sides, and let his laughter have vent. Laughter is contagious, and Jan laughed with him, but in a quieter way.

"Whatever put it into your head to personate Frederick?" inquired Jan. "Was it done to frighten the people?"

"Not at first," answered John Massingbird.

"Because, if to frighten had been your motive, you need only have appeared in your own person," continued Jan. "You were thought to be dead, you know, as much as Fred was. Fred is dead, I suppose?"

"Fred is dead, poor fellow, safe enough. I was supposed to be dead, but I came to life again."

"Did you catch Fred's star when he died?" asked Jan, pointing to the cheek.

"No," replied John Massingbird, with another burst of laughter, "I get that up with Indian-ink."

Bit by bit, Jan came into possession of the details. At least, of as much of them as John Massingbird deemed it expedient to furnish. It appeared that his being attacked and robbed and left for dead, when travelling down to Melbourne, was perfectly correct. Luke Roy quitted him, believing he was dead. Luke would not have quitted him so hastily, but that he wished to be on the track of the thieves, and he hastened to Melbourne. After Luke's departure, John Massingbird came, as he phrased it, to life again. He revived from the suspended animation, or swoon, which, prolonged over some hours, had been mistaken for death. The bullet was extracted from his side, and he progressed pretty rapidly towards recovery.

Luke meanwhile had reached Melbourne; and had come in contact with a family of the name of Eyre. Luke—if you have not forgotten—had said to Mr. Eyre that he had obtained a clue to the men who robbed his master; such, at least, was the information given by that gentleman to Sibylla Massingbird, on her subsequent sojourn at his house. He, Mr. Eyre, had said that Luke had promised to return the following day and inform him how he sped in the search, but that Luke never did return; that he had never seen him afterwards. All true. Luke found the clue, which he thought he had gained, to be no clue at all; but he heard news that pleased him better than fifty clues would have done—that his master, Mr. Massingbird, was alive. One who had travelled down to Melbourne from where John was lying, gave him the information. Without waiting to break bread or draw water, without giving another thought to Mr. Eyre, Luke started off there and then, to retrace his steps to John Massingbird. John was nearly well then, and they returned at once to the diggings. In his careless way, he said the loss must be given up for a bad job; they should never find the fellows, and the best plan was to pick up more gold to replace that gone. Luke informed him he had written home to announce his death. John went into a fit of laughter, forbade Luke to contradict it, and anticipated the fun he should have in surprising them, when he went home on the accumulation of his fortune. Thus he stopped at the diggings, remaining in complete ignorance of the changes which had taken place; the voyage of Frederick and his wife to Melbourne, the death of Mr. Verner, the subsequent death of Frederick; and above all—for that would have told most on John—of the strange will left by Mr. Verner, which had constituted him the inheritor of Verner's Pride.

But fortune did not come in the rapid manner fondly expected by John. The nuggets seemed shy. He obtained enough to rub along with, and that was all. The life did not ill suit him. To such a man as Lionel Verner, of innate refinement, just and conscientious, the life would have been intolerable, almost worse than death. John was not overburdened with any one of those qualities, and he rather liked the life than not. One thing was against him: he had no patience. Roving about from place to place, he was satisfied nowhere long. It was not only that he perpetually changed the spot, or bed, of work, but he changed from one settlement to another. This was the reason probably that Captain Cannonby had never met with him; it was more than probable that it was the cause of his non-success. Luke Roy was not so fond of roving. He found a place likely to answer his expectations, and he remained at it; so that the two parted early, and did not again meet afterwards.

Suddenly John Massingbird heard that he had been left heir to Verner's Pride. He had gone down to Melbourne; and some new arrival from England—from the county in which Verner's Pride was situated—mentioned this in his hearing. The stranger was telling the tale of the unaccountable will of Mr. Verner, of the death of John and Frederick Massingbird, and of the consequent accession of Lionel Verner; telling it as a curious bit of home gossip, unconscious that one of his listeners was the first-named heir—the veritable John Massingbird.

Too much given to act upon impulse, allowing himself no time to ascertain or to inquire whether the story might be correct or not, John Massingbird took a berth in the first ship advertised for home. He possessed very little more money than would pay for his passage; he gave himself no concern how he was to get back to Australia, or how exist in England, should the news prove incorrect, but started away off-hand. Providing for the future had never been made a trouble by John Massingbird.

He sailed, and he arrived safely. But, once in England, it was necessary to proceed rather cautiously; and John, careless and reckless though he was, could not ignore the expediency of so acting. There were certain reasons why it would not be altogether prudent to show himself in the neighbourhood of Verner's Pride, unless his pocket were weighty enough to satisfy sundry claims which would inevitably flock in upon him. Were he sure that he was the legitimate master of Verner's Pride, he would have driven up in a coach-and-six, with flying flags and streamers to the horses' heads, and so have announced his arrival in triumph. Not being sure, he preferred to feel his way, and this could not be done by arriving openly.

There was one place where he knew he could count upon being sheltered, while the way was "felt;" and this was Giles Roy's. Roy would be true to him; would conceal him if need were; and help him off again, did Verner's Pride, for him, prove a myth. This thought John Massingbird put in practice, arriving one dark night at Roy's, and startling Mrs. Roy nearly to death. Whatever fanciful ghosts the woman may have seen before, she never doubted that she saw a real ghost now.

His first question, naturally, was about the will. Roy told him it was perfectly true that a will had been made in his favour; but the will had been superseded by a codicil. And he related the circumstance of that codicil's mysterious loss. Was it found? John eagerly asked. Ah! there Roy could not answer him; he was at a nonplus; he was unable to say whether the codicil had been found or not. A rumour had gone about Deerham, some time subsequently to the loss, that it had been found, but Roy had never come to the rights of it. John Massingbird stared as he heard him say this. Then, couldn't he tell whether he was the heir or not? whether Lionel Verner held it by established right or by wrong? he asked. And Roy shook his head—he could not.

Under these uncertainties, Mr. John Massingbird did not see his way particularly clear. Either to stop, or to go. If he stopped, and showed himself, he might be unpleasantly assured that the true heir of Verner's Pride inhabited Verner's Pride; if he went back to Australia, the no less mortifying fact might come out afterwards, that he was the heir to Verner's Pride, and had run away from his own.

What was to be done? Roy suggested perhaps the best plan that could be thought of—that Mr. Massingbird should remain in his cottage in concealment, while he, Roy, endeavoured to ascertain the truth regarding the codicil. And John Massingbird was fain to adopt it. He took up his abode in the upper bedroom, which had been Luke's, and Mrs. Roy, locking her front door, carried his meals up to him by day, Roy setting himself to ferret out—as you may recollect—all he could learn about the codicil. The "all" was not much. Ordinary gossipers knew no more than Roy, whether the codicil had been found or not; and Roy tried to pump Matiss, by whom he was baffled—he even tried to pump Mr. Verner. He went up to Verner's Pride, ostensibly to ask whether he might paper Luke's old room at his own cost. In point of fact, the paper was in a dilapidated state, and he did wish to put it decent for John Massingbird; but he could have done it without speaking to Mr. Verner. It was a great point with Roy to find favour in the sight of Mr. Massingbird, his possible future master. Lionel partially saw through the man; he believed that he had some covert motive in seeking the interview with him, and that Roy was trying to pry into his affairs. But Roy found himself baffled also by Mr. Verner, as he had been by Matiss, in so far as that he could learn nothing certain of the existence or non-existence of the codicil.

Two days of the condemned confinement were sufficient to tire out John Massingbird. To a man of active, restless temperament, who had lived almost day and night under the open skies, the being shut up in a small, close room was well-nigh unbearable. He could not stamp on its floor (there was no space to walk on it), lest any intrusive neighbour below, who might have popped in, unwanted, should say, "Who have ye got up aloft?" He could not open the window and put his head out, to catch a breath of fresh air, lest prying eyes might be cast upon him.

"I can't stand this," he said to Roy. "A week of it would kill me. I shall go out at night."

Roy opposed the resolve so far as he dared—having an eye always to the not displeasing his future master. He represented to John Massingbird that he would inevitably be seen; and that he might just as well be seen by day as by night. John would not listen to reason. That very night, as soon as dark came on, he went out, and was seen. Seen by Robin Frost.

Robin Frost, whatever superstitions or fond feelings he may have cherished regarding the hoped-for reappearance of Rachel's spirit, was no believer in ghosts in a general point of view. In fact, that it was John Massingbird's ghost never once entered Robin's mind. He came at once to the more sensible conclusion that some error had occurred with regard to his reported death, and that it was John Massingbird himself.

His deadly enemy. The only one, of all the human beings upon earth, with whom Robin was at issue. For he believed that it was John Massingbird who had worked the ill to Rachel. Robin, in his blind vengeance, took to lying in wait with a gun: and Roy became cognisant of this.

"You must not go out again, sir," he said to John Massingbird; "he may shoot you dead."

Curious, perhaps, to say, John Massingbird had himself come to the same conclusion—that he must not go out again. He had very narrowly escaped meeting one who would as surely have known him, in the full moonlight, as did Robin Frost; one whom it would have been nearly as inconvenient to meet, as it was Robin. And yet, stop in perpetual confinement by day and by night, he could not; he persisted that he should be dead—almost better go back, unsatisfied, to Australia.

A bright idea occurred to John Massingbird. He would personate his brother. Frederick, so far as he knew, had neither creditors nor enemies round Deerham; and the likeness between them was so great, both in face and form, that there would be little difficulty in it. When they were at home together, John had been the stouter of the two: but his wanderings had fined him down, and his figure now looked exactly as Frederick's did formerly. He shaved off his whiskers—Frederick had never worn any; or, for the matter of that, had had any to wear—and painted an imitation star on his cheek with Indian-ink. His hair, too, had grown long on the voyage, and had not yet been cut; just as Frederick used to wear his. John had favoured a short crop of hair; Frederick a long one.

These little toilette mysteries accomplished, so exactly did he look like his brother Frederick, that Roy started when he saw him; and Mrs. Roy went into a prolonged scream that might have been heard at the brick-fields. John attired himself in a long, loose dark coat which had seen service at the diggings, and sallied out; the coat which had been mistaken for a riding habit.

He enjoyed himself to his heart's content, receiving more fun than he had bargained for. It had not occurred to him to personate Frederick's ghost; he had only thought of personating Frederick himself; but to his unbounded satisfaction, he found the former climax arrived at. He met old Matthew Frost; he frightened Dan Duff into fits; he frightened Master Cheese; he startled the parson; he solaced himself by taking up his station under the yew-tree on the lawn at Verner's Pride, to contemplate that desirable structure, which perhaps was his, and the gaiety going on in it. He had distinctly seen Lionel Verner leave the lighted rooms and approach him; upon which he retreated. Afterwards, it was rather a favourite night-pastime of his, the standing under the yew-tree at Verner's Pride. He was there again the night of the storm.

All this, the terrifying people into the belief that he was Frederick's veritable ghost, had been the choicest sport to John Massingbird. The trick might not have availed with Robin Frost, but they had found a different method of silencing him. Of an easy, good-tempered nature, the thought of any real damage from consequences had been completely passed over by John. If Dan Duff did go into fits, he'd recover from them; if Alice Hook was startled into something worse, she was not dead. It was all sport to free-and-easy John; and, but for circumstances, there's no knowing how long he might have carried this game on. These circumstances touched upon a point that influences us all, more or less—pecuniary consideration. John was minus funds, and it was necessary that something should be done; he could not continue to live upon Roy.

It was Roy himself who at length hit upon the plan that brought forth the certainty about the codicil. Roy found rumours were gaining ground abroad that it was not Frederick Massingbird's ghost, but Frederick himself; and he knew that the explanation must soon come. He determined to waylay Tynn and make an apparent confidant of him; by these means he should, in all probability, arrive at the desired information. Roy did so; and found that there was no codicil. He carried his news to John Massingbird, advising that gentleman to go at once and put in his claim to Verner's Pride. John, elated with the news, protested he'd have one more night's fun first.