"It is," said Roy.
They stood looking at each other by starlight. Tynn's face had grown hot and wet, and he wiped it. "It can't be," he mechanically repeated.
"I tell you it is, Mr. Tynn. Now never you mind asking me how I came to the bottom of it," went on Roy in a sort of defiant tone. "I did come to the bottom of it, and I do know it; and Mr. Fred, he knows that I know it. It's as sure that he is back, and in the neighbourhood, as that you and me is here at this gate. He is alive and he is among us—as certain as that you are Mr. Tynn, and I be Giles Roy."
There came flashing over Tynn's thoughts the scene of that very evening. His mistress's shrieks and agitation when she broke from Miss West; the cries and sobs which had penetrated to their ears when she was shut afterwards in the study with her husband. The unusual scene had been productive of gossiping comment among the servants and Tynn had believed something distressing must have occurred. Not this; he had never glanced a suspicion at this. He remembered the lines of pain which shone out at the moment from his master's pale face, in spite of its impassiveness; and somehow that very face brought conviction to Tynn now, that Roy's news was true. Tynn let his arms fall on the gate again with a groan.
"Whatever will become of my poor mistress?" he uttered.
"She!" slightingly returned Roy. "She'll be better off than him."
"Better off than who?"
"Than Mr. Verner. She needn't leave Verner's Pride. He must."
To expect any ideas but coarse ones from Roy, Tynn could not. But his attention was caught by the last suggestion.
"Leave Verner's Pride?" slowly repeated Tynn. "Must he?—good heavens! must my master be turned from Verner's Pride?"