“I wasn’t doing anything, sir.  I wasn’t there.”

“Oh, yes, you were,” said Lionel.  “Recollect yourself.  You were posted under the large yew tree on the lawn, watching my drawing-room windows.”

Roy looked up at this, the most intense surprise in his countenance.  “I never was on your lawn last night, sir; I wasn’t near it.  Leastways not nearer than the side field.  I happened to be in that, and I got through a gap in the hedge, on to the high road.”

“Roy, I believe that you were on the lawn last night, and watching the house,” persisted Lionel, looking fixedly at his countenance.  For the life of him he could not tell whether the man’s surprise was genuine, his denial real.  “What business had you there?”

“I declare to goodness, if it was the last word I had to speak, that I was not on your lawn, sir—­that I did not watch the house.  I did not go near the house.  I crossed the side field, cornerwise, and got out into the road; and that’s the nearest I was to the house last night.”

Roy spoke unusually impressive for him, and Lionel began to believe that, so far, he was telling truth.  He did not make any immediate reply, and Roy resumed.

“What cause have you got to accuse me, sir?  I shouldn’t be likely to watch your house—­why should I?”

“Some man was watching it,” replied Lionel.  “As you were seen in the road shortly afterwards, close to the side field, I came to the conclusion that it was you.”

“I can be upon my oath that it wasn’t, sir,” answered Roy.

“Very well,” replied Lionel, “I accept your denial.  But allow me to give you a recommendation, Roy—­not to trouble yourself with my affairs in any way.  They do not concern you; they never will concern you; therefore, don’t meddle with them.”

He walked away as he spoke.  Roy stood and gazed after him, a strange expression on his countenance.  Had Lucy Tempest seen it, she might have renewed her warning to Lionel.  And yet she would have been puzzled to tell the meaning of the expression, for it did not look like a threatening one.

Had Lionel Verner turned up Clay Lane, upon leaving Matthew Frost’s cottage, instead of down it, to take a path across the fields at the back, he would have encountered the Vicar of Deerham.  That gentleman was paying parochial visits that day in Deerham, and in due course he came to Matthew Frost’s.  He and Matthew had long been upon confidential terms; the clergyman respected Matthew, and Matthew revered his pastor.

Mr. Bourne took the seat which Lionel had but recently vacated.  He was so accustomed to the old man’s habitual countenance that he could detect every change in it; and he saw that something was troubling him.

“I am troubled in more ways than one, sir,” was the old man’s answer.  “Poor Robin, he’s giving me trouble again; and last night, sir, I had a sort of fright.  A shock, it may be said.  I can’t overget it.”