Jan grinned.  “I!” cried he.  “No, I don’t.”

“Then what do you suppose it is that’s frightening people?  And why should they be frightened?”

Jan sat himself down on the counter, and whirled his legs over to the other side, clearing the gallipots; so that he faced Miss Deborah.  Not to waste time, he took the mortar before him.  And there he was at his ease; his legs hanging, and his hands pounding.

“What should you think it is?” inquired he.

“How can I think, Mr. Jan?  Until an hour or two ago, I had not heard of the rumour.  I suppose it is somebody who walks about at night to frighten people.  But it is curious that he should look like Frederick Massingbird.  Can you understand it?”

“I am afraid I can,” replied Jan, pounding away.

“Will you tell me, please, what you think.”

“Can’t you guess at it, Miss Deb?”

Miss Deb looked at him, beginning to think his manner as mysterious as Master Cheese’s had been.

“I can’t guess at it at all,” she presently said.  “Please to tell me.”

“Then don’t you go and drop down in a fit when you hear it,” was the rejoinder of Jan.  “I suppose it is Fred himself.”

The words took her utterly by surprise.  Not at first did she understand their meaning.  She stared at Jan, her eyes and her mouth gradually opening.

“Fred himself?” she mechanically uttered.

“I suppose so.  Fred himself.  Not his ghost.”

“Do you mean that he has come to life again?” she rapidly rejoined.

“Well, you can call it so if you like,” said Jan.  “I expect that, in point of fact, he has never been dead.  The report of his death must have been erroneous; one of those unaccountable mistakes that do sometimes happen to astonish the world.”

Deborah West took in the full sense of the words, and sunk down on the big stone jar.  She turned all over of a burning heat; she felt her hands beginning to twitch with emotion.

“You mean that he is alive?—­that he has never been dead?” she gasped.

Jan nodded.

“Oh, Mr. Jan!  Then, what is—­what is Sibylla?”

“Ah,” said Jan, “that’s just it.  She’s the wife of both of ’em—­as you may say.”

For any petty surprise or evil, Miss Deborah would have gone off in a succession of screams, of pseudo-faints. This evil was all too real, too terrible.  She sat with her trembling hands clasped to pain, looking hopelessly at Jan.

He told her all he knew; all that was said by others.

“Dan Duff’s nothing,” remarked he; “and Cheese is nothing; and others, who confess to have seen it, are nothing:  and old Frost’s not much.  But I’d back Bourne’s calmness and sound sense against the world, and I’d back Broom’s.”

“And they have both seen it?”

“Both,” replied Jan.  “Both are sure that it is Frederick Massingbird.”

“What will Mr. Verner do?” she asked, looking round with a shudder, and not speaking above her breath.