She rose with an abrupt movement, and went to look at the sick man. She came back presently with a pale, composed face, and quietly set to work mixing dough for their evening meal. There was a long and sufficiently painful silence.
"It's a funny situation, isn't it?" said Jack at last, with a bitter note of laughter.
"Better not talk about it," she murmured. "Let us just wait and see."
Being forbidden to talk about it, the desire to do so became overmastering. "Suppose he doesn't say anything," he began.
"It won't make any difference to your friends," she said. "They know you're not a thief."
"It's a queer business this having a good name and not having one," Jack went on, plucking blades of grass. "As if anybody cared who took the money."
Mary offered no comment.
"I'd lose my claims," Jack went on. "I couldn't go out to file them. But the governor would never put the police on to me, now. He'd be too jolly glad to get rid of me."
Mary refused to raise her eyes from the dough.
Jack thought she hadn't understood what he was driving at. "You see it would let me out there," he went on. "This would be my country for ever and ever, and the people up here my only friends."