"You may grin as you please," he went on; "but answer me this; do the dead come back to life?" "Not this side of the resurrection reveille, if we may believe the dominies." "Then I have seen a ghost--a most horrible mask of a man we both know to our cost." "Name him and I will tell you whether he be a ghost or no." "'Tis the ghost of Frank Falconnet; or else it is what of the man himself the fire hath left," said Dick, and I marked his shiver at the word. "No!" said I. "I tell you yes." I sprang up, but the lad reached across the table and smote me back into the chair. "Softly, old firebrand; 'twas you who said the public matter must take precedence of the private. Moreover, if this be Francis Falconnet whom I have seen, your sweetest revenge on him will be to let him live--as he is." "I will kill him as I would a wild beast," I raged, thinking of that midnight scene in the great forest when my sweet lady had gone on her knees to this fiend in human guise. "And so should you," I added, "if you care aught for the honor of the woman who loves you." But now it was this hot-headed Richard I have drawn for you who saw farthest and clearest. "All in good time," he said, coolly. "At this present we have Dan Morgan's fish to fry, and sitting here saucing this devil's mess of a supper with thoughts of private revenge will never fry it. Set your wits at work; Falconnet's ghost has put mine hopelessly out of gear. Ye gods! but 'twas a most fearsome thing to look at!" I did not answer him at once, and whilst I plied knife and fork for the sake of appearances, I would think upon what he had discovered. This reappearance of Francis Falconnet was not to be passed over lightly. What would he do, or seek to do? Nay, what devilish thing was it he might not do? If the fire had burned his passion out, it had doubtless kindled a feller blaze of revenge. And if his thirst was for vengeance, how could he quench it in a deeper draft than by harrying the woman we both loved? 'Twas only by a mighty effort that I could drag myself back to Dick's urging and the needs of the hour. "To have some chance of hearing gossip to our purpose, we must make shift to gain admittance to this officers' rout at the manor house," I said. "The devil!" quoth Dick, "I venture that's easier said than done--for two plain country gentlemen." "Never fear; there will be others there lacking fine clothes, and so the throng be great enough, we may pass current in it." Richard pushed his plate back with a grimace of disgust. "Let us be at it, then. Another grapple with this pig-bait will finish me outright." A half-hour later we were tethering our cobs at the already crowded hitching-rail in front of a goodly mansion some mile or more beyond the camp limits on the northward road; a rambling manor house to the full as large as Appleby Hundred, with a shaven lawn in front, and within, lights and music and sounds of revelry.