Anne went on. “’He allowed that he would have done more wisely in facing it out and standing his trial; but he said, poor fellow, that he felt as if the earth had given way under him.  There was not a soul near who believed him; they brought his father’s history against him, and moreover he had been at the races, and had been betting, though in fact he had won, and not lost, and the 201. he had become possessed of was his capital, besides the little he could draw out of the bank

“’If he could only have seen Jenny in London she would have turned him back.  Indeed, that first stage was to consult her, but he fancied he saw the face of the Wil’sbro’ Superintendent in a cab, and the instinct of avoiding arrest carried him to Southampton, where he got a steerage berth in a sailing vessel, and came out to the Cape.  He has lived hard enough, but his Scots blood has stood him in good stead, and he has made something as an ivory-hunter, and now has a partnership in an ostrich farm in the Amatongula country.  Still he held to it that it was better he should continue dead to all here, since Mr. Bowater would never forgive him; and the knowledge of his existence would only hinder Jenny’s happiness.  You should have seen the struggle with which he said that!  He left me no choice, indeed; forbade a word to any one, until I suggested that I had a wife, and that my said wife and Julius had put me on the scent.  He was immensely struck to find that my sweet Nan came from Glen Fraser.  He said the evenings he spent there had done more to renew his home-sickness, and made him half mad after the sight or sound of us, than anything else had done, and I got him to promise to come and see us when we are settled in the bush.  What should you say to joining him in ostrich-hatching? or would it be ministering too much to the vanities of the world?  However, I’ll do something to get him cleared, if it comes to an appeal to old Moy himself, when I come home.  Meantime, remember, you are not at liberty to speak a word of this to any one but Julius, and, I suppose, his wife.  I hope—­’ There, Rose, I beg your pardon.”

“What does he hope?” asked Rosamond.

“He only hopes she is a cautious woman.”

“As cautious as his Nan, eh?  Ah, Anne! you’re a canny Scot, and maybe think holding your tongue as fine a thing as this Archie does; but I can’t bear it.  I think it is shocking, just wearing out the heart of the best and sweetest girl in the world.”

“At any rate,” said Julius, “we must be silent.  We have no right to speak, however we may feel.”

“You don’t expect it will stay a secret, or that he’ll go and pluck ostriches like geese, with Miles and Anne, and nobody know it?  ’Twould be taking example by their ostriches, indeed!”

“I think so,” said Julius, laughing; “but as it stands now, silence is our duty by both Miles and Archie, and Anne herself.  We must not make her repent having told us.”