“I dare say it would,” answered Rees hastily. For he was anxious to get rid of a subject which he felt to contain a temptation to his honor. “But as you have conceived the idea of this find being possible, I don’t think I ought to step in at the last moment and rob you of part of the honor of it.”
“But it is not the last moment; it is, on the contrary, only the first step that we have reached—that of recognising the fact that there may be treasure there, and that, if there is, it can only be reached from the inside of the castle walls.”
“From the inside?” echoed Rees in spite of himself, interested in the ever-fascinating suggestion, and impressed by the growl of passionate, hungry earnestness in the elder man’s hawk eyes.
“Yes. And as only the members of your family are allowed to ramble over the ruins without a guide nobody but you can pursue the search. Do you see?”
“That is unfortunate,” said Rees, with the irascible decision of the weak, who never feel that they have sufficiently emphasised the determination which they doubt their power to keep.
“For nothing would induce me to take advantage of a favor shown to me. Besides,” he added, after a lame pause, which Amos did not attempt to break, “after this afternoon’s work, of course Lord St. Austell will retract his special permission to my family.”
“He won’t think of it,” said Amos quietly. “And if he did, he wouldn’t condescend to do so.”
“And I shall certainly not show myself less magnanimous than he,” said Rees.
Again Goodhare said nothing; and again it was Rees who had to break the silence. It was rather awkward to do so, but curiosity concerning this project of the librarian’s began to burn within him.
“What makes you so strong in this belief, Goodhare? It isn’t like you to take an infatuation without good reason to back it.”