fields back there again, after I have seen what’s amiss at Bitterworth’s.”
The words touching Alice Hook caused quite a shock to Lionel. “It will be a sad thing, Jan, if she should die!”
“I don’t think I can save her. This comes of the ghost. I wonder how many more folks will get frightened to death.”
Lionel paused.
“Was it really that alone that frightened the girl, and caused her illness? How very absurd the thing sounds! And yet serious.”
“I can’t make it out,” remarked Jan. “Here’s Bourne now, says he saw it. There’s only one solution of the riddle that I can come to.”
“What’s that?” asked Lionel.
“Well,” said Jan, “it’s not a pleasant one.”
“You can tell it me, Jan, pleasant or unpleasant.”
“Not pleasant for you I mean, Lionel. I’ll tell you if you like.”
Lionel looked at him.
“Speak.”
“I think it must be Fred Massingbird himself.”
The answer appeared to take Lionel by surprise. Possibly he had not admitted the doubt.
“Fred Massingbird himself! I don’t understand you, Jan.”
“Fred himself, in life,” repeated Jan. “I fancy it will turn out that he did not die in Australia. He may have been very ill perhaps, and they fancied him dead: and now he is well, and has come over.”
Every vestige of colour forsook Lionel’s face.
“Jan!” he uttered, partly in terror, partly in anger. “Jan!” he repeated from between his bloodless lips. “Have you thought of the position in which your hint would place my wife?—the reflection it would cast upon her? How dare you?”
“You told me to speak,” was Jan’s composed answer. “I said you’d not like it. Speaking of it, or keeping silence, won’t make it any the better, Lionel.”
“What could possess you to think of such a thing?”
“There’s nothing else that I can think of. Look here! Is there such a thing as a ghost? Is that probable?”
“Nonsense! No,” said Lionel.
“Then what can it be, unless it’s Fred himself? Lionel, were I you, I’d look the matter full in the face. It is Fred Massingbird, or it is not. If not, the sooner the mystery is cleared up the better, and the fellow brought to book and punished. It’s not to be submitted to that he is to stride about for his own pastime, terrifying people to their injury. Is Alice Hook’s life nothing? Were Dan Duff’s senses nothing?—and, upon my word, I once thought there was good-by to them.”
Lionel did not answer. Jan continued.
“If it is Fred himself, the fact can’t be long concealed. He’ll be sure to make himself known. Why he should not do it at once, I can’t imagine. Unless—”
“Unless what?” asked Lionel.
“Well, you are so touchy on all points relating to Sibylla, that one hesitates to speak,” continued Jan. “I was going to say, unless he fears the shock to Sibylla; and would let her be prepared for it by degrees.”
“Jan,” gasped Lionel, “it would kill her.”
“No it wouldn’t,” dissented Jan. “She’s not one to be killed by emotion of any sort. Or much stirred by it, as I believe, if you care for my opinion. It would not be pleasant for you or for her, but she’d not die of it.”
Lionel wiped the moisture from his face. From the moment Jan had first spoken, a conviction seemed to arise within him that the suggestion would turn out to be only too true a one—that the ghost, in point of fact, was Frederick Massingbird in life.
“This is awful!” he murmured. “I would sacrifice my own life to save Sibylla from pain.”
“Where’d be the good of that?” asked practical Jan. “If it is Fred Massingbird in the flesh, she’s his wife and not yours: your sacrificing yourself—as you call it, Lionel—would not make her any the less or the more so. I am abroad a good deal at night, especially now when there’s so much sickness about, and I shall perhaps come across the fellow. Won’t I pin him if I get the chance.”
“Jan,” said Lionel, catching hold of his brother’s arm to detain him as he was speeding away, for they had reached the gate of Verner’s Pride, “be cautious that not a breath of this suspicion escapes you. For my poor wife’s sake.”
“No fear,” answered Jan. “If it gets about, it won’t be from me, mind. I am going to believe in the ghost henceforth, you understand. Except to you and Bourne.”
“If it gets about,” mechanically answered Lionel, repeating the words which made most impression upon his mind. “You think it will?”
“Think! It’s safe to,” answered Jan. “Had old Frost, and Dan Duff, and Cheese, not been great gulls, they’d have taken it for Fred himself; not his ghost. Bourne suspects. From a hint he dropped to me just now at Hook’s, I find he takes the same view of the case that I do.”
“Since when have you suspected this, Jan?”
“Not for many hours. Don’t keep me, Lionel. Bitterworth may be dying, for aught I know, and so may Alice Hook.”
Jan went on like a steam-engine. Lionel remained, standing at his entrance-gate, more like a prostrate being than a living man.
Thought after thought crowded upon him. If it was really Frederick Massingbird in life, how was it that he had not made his appearance before? Where had he been all this while? Considerably more than two years had elapsed since the supposed death. To the best of Lionel’s recollection, Sibylla had said Captain Cannonby buried her husband: but it was a point into which Lionel had never minutely inquired. Allow that Jan’s suggestion was correct—that he did not die—where had he been since? What had prevented him joining or seeking his wife? What prevented him doing it now? From what motive could he lie in concealment in the neighbourhood, stealthily prowling about at night? Why did he not appear openly?