Perhaps this was all that John Caldigate wanted to learn.
At last there came word that John intended to come home with the next month's mail.

This letter arrived about midsummer, when the miner had been absent three years and a half.

He had not settled all his affairs so completely but that it might be necessary that he should return; but he thought that he would be able to remain at least twelve months in England.

And in England he intended to make his home.

Gold, he said, was certainly very attractive; but he did not like New South Wales as a country in which to live.