“Tell me what it was,” he said, soothingly. “You saw--some one? Do not cry so bitterly. You never harmed anybody in your life. Tell me--you thought you saw----?” “I saw _him_, as plainly as I see you, Geoff; don’t tell me it was a fancy. He was sitting, resting, like a man tired with walking, dusty and worn out. I noticed his weary look before I saw his face, and just as we passed he raised his head. Oh, why should he have looked at _me_ like that, Geoff? No, I never did any one harm, much less him. I have always stood up for him, you know, since you first spoke to me. I have always said, always--even before this was found out: living people mistake each other continually; but the dead--the dead ought to know----” “Who is dead?” said Geoff; “are you speaking of John Musgrave, who is as much alive as I am?” “If he were a living man,” said Mary, solemnly, “how could I have seen him? Geoff, it is no mistake. I saw him, as I see you.” “And is that why you think him dead?” said Geoff, with natural surprise. Lady Stanton raised herself erect in her corner. “Geoff, oh, can you not understand?” she cried. But she did not herself quite understand what she meant. She thought from the suddenness of it, from the shock it gave her, and from the disappearance of the wayfarer, which was so inexplicable, that it was an apparition she had seen. John Musgrave could not be there, in the flesh, seated by the roadside; it was not possible; but when Geoff asked whether having seen him was an argument for thinking him dead, she had nothing to say. She wrung her hands. “I have seen him whether he is living or dead,” she repeated, “and he looked at me with such eyes. He was not young as he used to be, but worn, and a little grey. I came to tell you what Sir Henry said; but here is something far, far more important. Know him! Could I mistake him, do you think?--how could I mistake him? Geoff, how could it be _he_, sitting there without any warning, without a word? but if it was he, if that was possible, why are we going on like this? Are we to desert him?--give him up? I am talking folly,” she said, again clasping her hands. “Oh, Geoff, a living man would not have looked at me with such eyes.” “He has not very much right to happy eyes, has he?” said Geoff; “coming home an outlaw, not venturing to speak to any one. It would not be half so sad if he were a ghost. But to come back, and not to dare to trust even his friends, not to know if he has any friends, not to be able to go home and see his children like any other man, to rest on the stones at the roadside, he to whom all the land belongs! I don’t wonder he looked sad,” cried Geoff, half-sympathetic, half-indignant. “How was he to know even that he would find a friend in you?”