Evidence upon evidence! Every moment brought less loop-hole of escape for Lionel. "How can it be?" he gasped. "If he is not dead, where can he have been all this while?"
"I conclude it will turn out to be one of those every-day occurrences that have little marvel at all in them. My thoughts were busy upon it, while standing over the grave yonder. I suppose he must have been to the diggings—possibly laid up there by illness; and letters may have miscarried."
"You feel little doubt upon the fact itself—that it is Frederick Massingbird?"
"I feel none. It is certainly he. Won't you come in and sit down?"
"No, no," said Lionel; and, drawing his hand from the vicar's, he went forth again, he, and his heavy weight. Frederick Massingbird alive!
CHAPTER LVII.
A WALK IN THE RAIN.
The fine September morning had turned to a rainy afternoon. A heavy mist hung upon the trees, the hedges, the ground—something akin to the mist which had fallen upon Lionel Verner's spirit. The day had grown more like a November one; the clouds were leaden-coloured, the rain fell. Even the little birds sought the shelter of their nests.
One there was who walked in it, his head uncovered, his brow bared. He was in the height of his fever dream. It is not an inapt name for his state of mind. His veins coursed as with fever; his thoughts took all the vague uncertainty of a dream. Little heeded he that the weather had become chilly, or that the waters fell upon him!