“Certainly; the weekly supply is nearly double what it was six months ago.”
“Then of course we must be rich before long?”
“There is the possibility, but mines are uncertain things.” A pause, a scarcely suppressed yawn, then Owen turned on his heel. “I am going in, Gwladys; I don’t care to talk business out of business hours, and I want to have a chat with mother.”
His tone of easy indifference, coming so soon after seeing Nan’s suffering face, and hearing her words of intense anxiety, half maddened me. I know I forgot myself. I ran forward and caught his arm, and made him look me full in the face. No fear then, as he gazed at my crimsoning cheek and angry eye, that he should say I lacked my childhood’s enthusiasm.
“You are not going in yet,” I said, “for I have got something to say to you—something, I repeat, which I will say. You need not pretend to me, Owen, that we are not getting rich, for I know we are. But I ask you one question, Is it right that we should have this money at the risk of the colliers’ lives? is it right, in order that we should have a little more gold, that the coal pillars should be cut away, until the roofs are in danger of falling? and is it right that the timber supports should be made thinner than is safe? All this adds to our money, Owen; is it right that we should grow rich in that way?”
“Good God! Gwladys;” a pause, then vehemently, “How dare you say such things to me! who has been telling you such lies?”
“I won’t mention the name of the person who has told me the truth, but I have heard it through the colliers; the colliers themselves are speaking of it.”
Owen covered his face with his hand; he was trembling, but whether with anger or pain, I could not say. I stood silent, waiting for him to speak; he did not, perhaps for two minutes; those minutes watching his trembling hand, seemed like twenty.
“You and the colliers have both made a mistake,” he said then; “they have exaggerated notions of the necessary thickness of the coal pillars. I never have them worked beyond what is safe. As to the timber supports, they are measured with the nicest mathematical accuracy. You and they both forget that I am an engineer, that I work the mine with a knowledge which they cannot possess. Good God! to think that I am capable of risking willingly men’s lives to win gold; to think that you, Gwladys, should believe me capable of it; but you are not what you were. Once, such words could never have been said to you of me. You are changed to me utterly, and I am utterly disappointed in you.” He pushed his hat over his eyes, and before I could reply was several paces away, walking rapidly in the direction of the still romantic and once beautiful Rhoda Vale.