“He told you then?”
“No, I guessed it from his manner, and when I found you didn’t come to Llancader, and then I spoke to mamma, and she told me, and said it was no use hoping. Oh, but Rees, I don’t think you can care as much as I do! You—you think more about getting this treasure than about me. I know you do. I know you were angry at my interrupting you. Yes, and I believe you were at work in here, and that it’s only to prevent my finding out something that you are so nice to me now.”
She thrust him away from her, noticed the roughness of the fresh-dug earth at her feet, and looked up at him with triumphant suspicion.
“Ah!” she cried in a whisper.
Rees was seized with a bold idea.
“Yes,” he said, “I have been digging here; I have been trying to find the treasure. For if I could show him the way to a little fortune, the earl could scarcely refuse to let me marry you.”
Lady Marion, fond of him as she was, had the sense to look doubtful.
“And Deborah? They say you like Deborah better than me!”
Rees was not past blushing, and he blushed now.
“Nonsense!” he said. “Look here, Marion.”