This mysterious method of approach determined him, after all, not to leave the place till he had ascertained more definite facts of his sister's position--whether she were the deluded victim of the stranger or the wife she obviously believed herself to be.

Having eaten some supper, he left the inn, it being now about eleven o'clock.

He first looked into the shed, and, finding the horse still standing there, waited irresolutely near the door of his sister's lodging.

Half an hour elapsed, and, while thinking he would climb into a loft hard by for a night's rest, there seemed to be a movement within the shutters of the sitting-room that his sister occupied.

Roger hid himself behind a faggot- stack near the back door, rightly divining that his sister's visitor would emerge by the way he had entered.