The Squire's Daughter Part 58

"Where's Jewell's letter?" Ralph questioned, after a pause.

"I've not heard from Jewell."

"Then how did you get to know?"

"Jenkins told me. He got a letter from Sir John this morning saying he had sold it."

"To whom?"

"He mentioned no name--possibly he didn't know. It went to the man, I expect, who was willing to pay most for it."

"Perhaps Sir John got to know we were after it."

"Possibly, though I don't think Jewell would tell him."

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter, I suppose," Ralph said, in a hard voice.

"It's all in the day's work."

"I feel a good deal more upset about it than I thought I should,"

William said, after a long pause.

"Yes?" Ralph questioned.

"I fancy the spirit of adventure had got a bit into my blood," William answered, with a gentle smile. "I felt ready to speculate all I had. I was itching, as one may say, to be at the lode."

"Such an adventurous spirit needed checking," Ralph said, with a laugh that had more bitterness in it than mirth.

"Perhaps so. Now we shall have to face the whole problem over again."

"I shall try my fortune abroad. I made up my mind weeks ago that if this failed I should leave the country."

"Yes, yes. But it comes hard all the same. There ought to be as much room for enterprise in this country as in any other."

"Perhaps there is, but we are in the wrong corner of it."

"No, it isn't that. It is simply that we have to deal with the wrong people. I grow quite angry when I think how all enterprise is checked by the hidebound fossils who happen to be in authority, and the stupid laws they have enacted."

Ralph laughed.

"My dear William, you will be talking treason next," he said, and then a customer came in and put an end to further conversation.

Ralph went back home, and without saying anything to his sister, began quietly to sort out his things.

"I may as well get ready first as last," he said to himself; "and the sooner I take my departure the better."

He was very silent when he came down to dinner, and his eyes had an absent look in them.

"What have you been doing all the morning?" Ruth asked at length.

"Sorting out my things, Ruth; that's all."

She started, and an anxious look came into her eyes.

"But why have you been sorting them out to-day?" she questioned.

"Because to-morrow will be Sunday," he said, with a smile, "and you are strongly opposed to Sunday labour."

"But still, I don't understand?" she interrogated uneasily.

"I would like to get off on Tuesday morning if possible."

"Do you mean----" she began.

"I shall have to clear out sooner or later, Ruth," he interrupted, "and the sooner the better."

"Then you have decided to go abroad, Ralph?" And her face became very pale.

"What else can I do?" he asked. "I really have not the courage to settle down at St. Ivel Mine at fourteen shillings a week, even if I were sure of getting work, which I am not."

"And I don't want you to do it," she said suddenly, with a rush of tears to her eyes.

"In a bigger country, with fewer restrictions and barbed wire fences, I may be able to do something," he went on. "At worst, I can but fail."

"I hoped that something would turn up here," she said, after a long pause.

"So did I, Ruth; and, indeed, until this morning things looked promising."

"Well?"

"Like so many other hopes, Ruth, it has gone out in darkness."

"You have said nothing to me about it," she said at length.

"No. I did not wish to buoy you up with hopes that might end in nothing."

"What was it you had in your mind, Ralph?" And she raised her soft, beseeching eyes to his.

"Oh, well," he said uneasily, "no harm can come of telling you now, though I did promise William that I would say nothing to you about it."

"Oh, indeed!" she said, in hurt tones. "What has he to do with it?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, he had nearly everything to do with it."

"And he had so little confidence in me that I was not to be trusted?"

"No, sis. William Menire is not that kind of man, as you ought to know by this time."

"Then why was I not to be told? Does he take me for a child?"