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.