“Not very well,” replied our forester. “Some one talked all night, and struck lights, and I could not sleep.”
This he said, fixing his piercing eyes on the Frenchman as though he would look him through. But Rayon, whilst avoiding his gaze, answered in an apparently unconcerned manner,—
“Ah, my dear friend, I expect it was me you heard. I had such an attack of indigestion, and when I suffer from that, I walk in my sleep.”
“Oh!” began Mat, still fixing the man with his gaze; but he was interrupted at this point by the entrance of a boy with the mail from Sydney.
One letter was for Rayon, who, after glancing at its contents, said in an apparently agitated voice,—
“Business of great importance obliges me to ‘render’ myself in Sydney. I bought some valuable land there, and my agent, I now hear, has run away with the title-deeds.”
“How dreadful!” said Mrs. Bell. “When will you be back?”
“Directly I find the deeds, madame; I must be off at once, and try to discover the agent.” And bowing profusely in a general way, the Professor left the table.
“And I will see him off,” thought Mat, as he followed the Frenchman out.
Going to the hut, Mat found “his man” in the act of packing his things, and under pretence of helping him to strap his valise, brushed his arm across Rayon’s head, when, presto! off tumbled a wig, disclosing a shock head of hair of a much lighter colour underneath.