For it was Mr. Roy's wish, from private motives of his own, that Tynn should not know he had been looked for, but should believe the encounter to be accidental. Tynn turned off the road, and leaned his elbow upon the gate, rather glad of the opportunity to stand a minute and get his breath. It was somewhat up-hill to Verner's Pride, the whole of the way from Deerham.
"Are you sitting here for pleasure?" asked he of Roy.
"I'm sitting here for grief," returned Roy; and Tynn was not sharp enough to detect the hollow falseness of his tone. "I had to go up the road to-night on a matter of business, and, walking back by Verner's Pride, it so overcame me that I was glad to bring myself to a anchor."
"How should walking by Verner's Pride overcome you?" demanded Tynn.
"Well," said Roy, "it was the thoughts of poor Mr. and Mrs. Verner did it. He didn't behave to me over liberal in turning me from the place I'd held so long under his uncle, but I've overgot that smart; it's past and gone. My heart bleeds for him now, and that's the truth."
For Roy's heart to "bleed" for any fellow-creature was a marvel that even Tynn, unsuspicious as he was, could not take in. Mrs. Tynn repeatedly assured him that he had been born into the world with one sole quality—credulity. Certainly Tynn was unusually inclined to put faith in fair outsides. Not that Roy could boast much of the latter advantage.
"What's the matter with Mr. Verner?" he asked of Roy.
Roy groaned dismally. "It's a thing that is come to my knowledge," said he—"a awful misfortin that is a-going to drop upon him. I'd not say a word to another soul but you, Mr. Tynn; but you be his friend if anybody be, and I feel that I must either speak or bust."
Tynn peered at Roy's face. As much as he could see of it, for the night was not a very clear one.
"It seems quite a providence that I happened to meet you," went on Roy, as if any meeting with the butler had been as far from his thoughts as an encounter with somebody at the North Pole. "Things does turn out lucky sometimes."