. . . .Yet old Matthew held steady. "It was the face of one who has been dead these two years past," he told the rector. "I saw the spirit of Mr. Frederick Massingbird!"
Things had never quite returned to normal in Deerham, after the mysterious drowning of Rachel Frost in Willow Pool. Now the young Dan Duff has fallen into seizures, having stared into the moonlit face of a tall, spectral man -- one he knows to be dead. And Robin Frost, who long before gave up waiting by Willow Pool for the ghost of Rachel to appear, has started spending nights again out beneath the open sky -- with a loaded gun cradled in his arms.
Troubles beset even Lionel Verner, in line to inherit Verner's Pride through his new marriage. Even as all Deerham trembles at sightings of the dead man, Verner faces financial embarrassment, perhaps even ruin, due to his beautiful new wife's excesses.
Author Biography
Ellen Wood (1814 - 1887), was an English novelist, better known as Mrs. Henry Wood. She is remembered most for her 1861 novel East Lynne, but many of her books became international bestsellers and widely known in the United States. She surpassed the fame of Charles Dickens in Australia. In 1836 she married Henry Wood, who worked in the banking and shipping trade in Dauphin in the South of France, where they lived for 20 years. On the failure of Wood's business, the family (including four children) returned to England and settled in Upper Norwood near London, where Ellen Wood turned to writing. This supported the family after Henry Wood died in 1866. She wrote over 30 novels, many of which (especially East Lynne) enjoyed remarkable popularity. Among the best known are Danesbury House, Oswald Cray, Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles, The Channings, Lord Oakburn's Daughters and The Shadow of Ashlydyat. Her writing tone would be described as "conservative and Christian," occasionally expressing religious rhetoric. In 1867, Wood purchased the English magazine Argosy, which had been founded by Alexander Strahan in 1865. Wood continued as its editor until her death in 1887, when her son Charles Wood took over. Wood's works were translated into many languages, including French and Russian. Leo Tolstoy, in a March 1872 letter to his older brother Sergei, noted that he was "reading Mrs. Wood's wonderful novel In the Maze." Wood wrote several works of supernatural fiction, including "The Ghost" (1862) and the often anthologized "Reality or Delusion?" (1868).
