separation from our young lady, he brought out with an emphasis
that startled me: "Ah I'm not a bit engaged to her, you know!"

"Not overtly," I answered, "because her mother doesn't like you.
But I've always taken for granted a private understanding."

"Well, there WAS one. But there isn't now." That was all he said
save something about Mrs. Erme's having got on her feet again in
the most extraordinary way--a remark pointing, as I supposed, the
moral that private understandings were of little use when the
doctor didn't share them. What I took the liberty of more closely
inferring was that the girl might in some way have estranged him.
Well, if he had taken the turn of jealousy for instance it could
scarcely be jealousy of me. In that case--over and above the
absurdity of it--he wouldn't have gone away just to leave us
together. For some time before his going we had indulged in no
allusion to the buried treasure, and from his silence, which my
reserve simply emulated, I had drawn a sharp conclusion. His
courage had dropped, his ardour had gone the way of mine--this
appearance at least he left me to scan. More than that he couldn't
do; he couldn't face the triumph with which I might have greeted an
explicit admission. He needn't have been afraid, poor dear, for I
had by this time lost all need to triumph. In fact I considered I
showed magnanimity in not reproaching him with his collapse, for
the sense of his having thrown up the game made me feel more than
ever how much I at last depended on him. If Corvick had broken
down I should never know; no one would be of any use if HE wasn't.
It wasn't a bit true I had ceased to care for knowledge; little by
little my curiosity not only had begun to ache again, but had
become the familiar torment of my days and my nights. There are