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-bye to them."