t ship advertised for home. He
possessed very little more money than would pay for his passage; he gave
himself no concern how he was to get back to Australia, or how exist in
England, should the news prove incorrect, but started away off-hand.
Providing for the future had never been made a trouble by John
Massingbird.

He sailed, and he arrived safely. But, once in England, it was necessary
to proceed rather cautiously; and John, careless and reckless though he
was, could not ignore the expediency of so acting. There were certain
reasons why it would not be altogether prudent to show himself in the
neighbourhood of Verner's Pride, unless his pocket were weighty enough
to satisfy sundry claims which would inevitably flock in upon him. Were
he sure that he was the legitimate master of Verner's Pride, he would
have driven up in a coach-and-six, with flying flags and streamers to
the horses' heads, and so have announced his arrival in triumph. _Not_
being sure, he preferred to feel his way, and this could not be done by
arriving openly.

There was one place where he knew he could count upon being sheltered,
while the way was "felt;" and this was Giles Roy's. Roy would be true to
him; would conceal him if need were; and help him off again, did
Verner's Pride, for him, prove a myth. This thought John Massingbird
put in practice, arriving one dark night at Roy's, and startling Mrs.
Roy nearly to death. Whatever fanciful ghosts the woman may have seen
before, she never doubted that she saw a real ghost now.

His first question, naturally, was about the will. Roy told him it was
perfectly true that a will had been made in his favour; but the will had
been superseded by a codicil. And he related the circumstance of that
codicil's mysterious loss. Was it found? John eagerly asked. Ah! there
Roy could not answer him; he was at a nonplus; he was unable to say
whether the codicil had been found or not. A rumour had gone about
Deerham, some time subsequently to the loss, that it _had_ been found,
but Roy had never come to the rights of it. John Massingbird stared as
he heard him say this. Then, couldn't he tell whether he was the heir or
not? whether Lionel Verner held it by established right or by wrong? he
asked. And Roy shook his head--he could not.

Under these uncertainties, Mr. John Massingbird did not see his way
particularly clear. Either to stop, or to go. If he stopped, and showed
himself, he might be unpleasantly assur