It seems he has been acting as
manager on an ostrich farm for the last three years, far up the
country. So I lost no time in sending up a note to him, telling
him, if he had not forgotten old times, to come down and see me
while I was lying off Durban Bay. I heard no more for ten days, and
had got in the stores and was to sail the next day, thinking he had
given us all up, when a boat hailed us just come over the bar. I
saw Archie's white head, and in ten minutes I had him on deck. 'For
Heaven's sake--am I cleared, Miles?' was the first thing he said;
and when I could not say that he was, it went to my heart to see how
the eager look sank away, and he was like a worn-down man of fifty.
Poor fellow, I found he had ridden two hundred miles, with the hope
that I had brought him news that his innocence was proved, and the
revulsion was almost more than he could bear. You see, he had no
notion that we thought him dead, and so he took the entire absence
of any effort to trace him as acquiescence in his guilt; and when he
found out how it was, he laid me under the strongest injunctions to
disclose to no one that he is living--not that he fears any results,
but that he says it would only disturb every one and make them
wretched--"
"He must have gone and married.
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