"Not necessary," I answered. "I'm as fit as I can be!"
"Then will you tell me," he asked, "why, with the shooting just on, and the hunting in full view, you are talking of going to America?"
"I've had a good many years of hunting and shooting and cricket and sport of all sorts, Gilbert," I answered. "Perhaps I'm not quite so keen as I was."
"If you are not going to America for sport," my cousin asked, "what are you going for?"
I rose to my feet.
"Gilbert," I said, "it's no use. Some day or other you will know all about it—perhaps very soon. But, for the present, I can tell you nothing. I've stumbled into a queer place, and I've got to get out of it somehow. Wish me good luck, old chap!" I added, holding out my hand; "and—if anything should happen to me abroad—look after the old place—it'll be yours, you know, every stick and stone."
Then I got away as soon as I could. Gilbert was by way of becoming incoherent, and, so far as I was concerned, there was nothing more to be said.
CHAPTER XX
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS
I locked the door of my state-room, and seated myself upon the edge of the lower bunk with a little sigh of relief. The slow pounding of the engines had commenced, the pulse of the great liner was beating, and through the port-hole I could see the docks, with their line of people, gliding past us. We were well out in the Mersey already.