Perhaps even the unsympathetic Trevethick was really somewhat touched; at all events, he did not interrupt him, but when he had quite finished took out his watch, and said, in a softened tone:  “The hour is late, Mr. Yorke, and you have given me much to think about, to which I can not reply just now.  Your communication has taken me altogether by surprise.  I will answer neither ‘Yes’ nor ‘No’ at present.  Good-night, Sir.”  He nodded, which was his usual salute at parting; but upon the young man’s eagerly stretching out his hand, he took it readily enough, and gave it such a squeeze with his giant fingers as made Richard wince.  Then, smiling grimly, he retired.

As his heavy step toiled up stairs Richard perceived a slip of paper on the floor, which had apparently fluttered out of the old man’s watch-case.  Upon it were written the three letters, B, N, Z. As he held it in his hand he heard the landlord’s tread returning with unusual haste, and had only just time to replace the paper, face downward, on the sanded floor, before the other reappeared.

“I have dropped a memorandum, somewhere,” said he.  “It is of no great consequence, but—­Oh, here it is!” He picked it up, and replaced it in the hollow of his great silver watch.

Richard, who was sitting where he had left him, looked up with a glance of careless inquiry.  “Good-night again, Mr. Trevethick.”

“Good-night, Sir.”  And again the landlord smiled in his grim fashion.

CHAPTER XVIII.

BY MOONLIGHT.

Richard sat over the fire, revolving his late conversation with Trevethick in his mind, and picturing to himself what would probably come of it.  Although the declaration of his love for Harry had been thus suddenly made, it had not been made unadvisedly.  Though he had not expected the opportunity for stating it would have offered itself so soon, he had planned his whole argument out beforehand, with Wheal Danes for its pivot.  And, upon the whole, he felt satisfied with its effect upon his host.  The latter had not surprised him (except by his frankness) in his disclosure respecting the rich promise of the mine.  Richard’s own observation, aided by the clew which Parson Whymper’s few chance sentences had given him, had convinced him that Wheal Danes was a most coveted object in the landlord’s eyes; and had it happened to have fallen into his own hands, he did really suspect enough to have had it searched for ore from top to bottom.  Trevethick had therefore lost nothing by his revelation (as his sagacity had doubtless foreseen), while he had made a very favorable impression upon Richard by his candor.  Cornish giants, thought the latter, might be rude and brutal, but duplicity was foreign to their character; it was not Blunderbore, but Jack the Giant-killer, who dug pitfalls, and pretended to swallow what he only put in a bag.