“Indeed! Well, suppose I say go, and you make your way back along the river very slowly, for you are in a miserably weak state?”
“Yes, sir; but I am getting better now.”
“Yes, I know; but suppose, as soon as you are gone, my sister and her husband appear, what am I to say to them?”
“I had not thought of that,” I replied.
“But you see I had. But come, Mayne, be frank with me. You have some other reason for wanting to go.”
He looked at me so searchingly that I coloured, for I could feel my cheeks burning.
“No, sir,” I said; “no other reason.”
“Not gold-hunting?”
“No; indeed, no.”
“But you and Dean have been talking about your discovery a good deal.”