With a shrug of his shoulders, and a return of the old troubled look on his face, Crawford turned away and went on to his own room to dress for dinner.
“Don’t want to be disturbed,” the mine owner thought, half bitterly. “There’s no mistake about it. All of his old affection for me is dead. Heaven only knows how it’s come about, but I’m sure it isn’t my fault!”
Presently he was standing in front of his dresser, glancing mechanically at his bearded face in the mirror, and shaking his head.
“I’d give all I possess to find out what is the matter,” he said. “Jimmy and I have been like brothers for years, and the way he’s treating me now is almost more than I can bear. I sometimes wish we’d never found the mine, and were back again footing it through the bush together. We didn’t have any money, and we never knew where the next meal was coming from, but—we were friends then.”
As he crossed to the wardrobe he imagined he heard his name spoken, and came to a halt close to the connecting door. It was evident that the barrier was a thin one.
A murmur of voices came to his ear; but it was much too indistinct for him to make out any words. He could distinguish Stone’s gruff tones, and also the sound of another voice—a much sharper, higher-pitched one. But that was all.
With an effort, Crawford roused himself and turned away. “Come, come!” he said to himself. “That isn’t fair. You’ve never been an eavesdropper, and you’re not going to turn to that sort of thing at your time of life.”
He went on with his dressing, and at length heard the scrape of a key in the lock of the next door. Crossing to his own, Crawford opened it quietly and looked out. Stone was striding down the wide corridor, and by his side walked a thin, short, dried-up-looking individual.
As the two figures turned at the end of the corridor to go on down the stairs, the electric light at the landing shone for a moment full on the face of Stone’s companion. Crawford had a glimpse of a bony jaw, a hooked, cruel nose, and a pair of small unprepossessing eyes.
“By George! What an ugly-looking fellow Jimmy has picked up!” the miner exclaimed, as he quickly withdrew his head, in order not to be seen spying on his old partner. “I wonder who the runt is, and where Jimmy got hold of him. They seemed to have something interesting to talk about.”