“Not now, Mr John,” I said.
“But my wife, she wants to see you.”
“Yes, sir, and I want to see her; but not now.”
“He is quite right, John,” said Mr Raydon. “Let him stay for the present.”
Mr John looked from one to the other and then said seriously—“As you will, Dan. Good-bye then for the present, Mayne. There, keep up your heart. I’ll talk to my brother, and I’ll warrant that before long he will see the truth as I do.”
He stopped back to say this, and then went on after Mr Raydon, leaving me to fling myself on the bench, rest my elbows on the table, and bury my face in my hands. For it seemed to me that I had never felt so miserable before, and as if fate was playing me the most cruel of tricks. I felt indignant too with Mr Raydon, who had seemed to look upon his brother-in-law’s faith in me with a cruel kind of contempt, treating him as if he were an enthusiast easily deceived.
And all this stung me cruelly. I was touched in my pride, and the worst part of it seemed to be that Mrs John might have so much faith in her brother, that she would be ready to believe his word before mine.
As I sat there thinking, I was obliged to own that matters did look black against me, and that with such terrible evidence in array, there was some excuse for Mr Raydon.
“But she might believe me,” I said, half aloud. But even as I said this, I recalled how he had evidently dreaded that I should betray the secret, and watched me and Gunson at our last meeting, which certainly did look suspicious when taken into consideration with the object of the latter’s visits to the neighbourhood.
“Gunson shall come here and tell him everything. He shall make him believe,” I said to myself; and then in a despondent way, I felt that I could not go up to the camp without making Mr Raydon think worse of me at once, and then Mrs John would believe in him more and more. And it all seemed over, and as if the happy days I had looked forward to when the travellers came, would never be, and that I was the most unfortunate fellow that had ever breathed, when a hand was laid gently on my head, and a voice said—