"We have been hunting together for five years, Harry, and up to the present I have ever let myself be guided by you, leaving you free to act as you pleased for our mutual welfare. Still this evening your conduct has appeared to me so extraordinary that I am obliged, in the name of our friendship, which has never suffered a break up to this day, to ask you for an explanation of what has occurred in my presence."
"For what good, my boy? Do you not know me well enough to be certain that I would not consent to do any dishonourable deed?"
"Up to this evening I would have sworn it, Harry: yes, on my honor I would have sworn it—"
"And now?" the young man asked, stopping and looking his friend in the face.
"Now," Dick answered, with a certain degree of hesitation, "hang it all! I will be frank with you, Harry, as an honest hunter should ever be. Now I do not know if I should do so: no, indeed I should not."
"What you say there causes me great pain, Dick. You oblige me, in order to dissipate your unjust suspicions, to confide to you a secret which is not my own, and which I would not have revealed for anything in the world."
"Pardon me, Harry, but in my place I am convinced you would act as I am doing. We are very far from our country, which we shall never see again, perhaps. We are responsible for each other, and our actions must be free from all double interpretation."
"I will do what you ask, Dick, whatever it may cost me. I recognise the justice of your observations. I understand how much my conduct this night must have hurt you and appeared ambiguous. I do not wish our friendship to receive the least wound, or the slightest cloud to arise between us. You shall be satisfied."
"I thank you, Harry. What you tell me relieves my bosom of a heavy load. I confess that I should have been in despair to think badly of you; but the words of that intriguing monk, and the manners of that worthy acolyte, Red Cedar, put me in a passion. Had you not warned me so quickly to silence, I believe—Heaven pardon me!—that I should have ended by telling them a piece of my mind."
"You displayed considerable prudence in keeping silence, and be assured you will completely approve me."