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