Sir Everard Clinton had gone through so much, both physically and mentally, in the course of the preceding two hours that as soon as he found himself on board the yacht, the inevitable reaction set in. Mr. Marchment gave up his own cabin to him, and that he lacked nothing in the way of nursing and attention on the part of Dacia and Burgo goes without saying. He was terribly weak and low, but beyond that, there seemed nothing chronically amiss with him. "All that I need is rest--rest," he murmured more than once. It was rest of mind as much, or more perhaps, than rest of body that he stood in need of. There was nothing now to debar him of it. At length he knew that he was safe, and in that fact everything was implied.
The Naiad had weighed anchor at daybreak, and the forenoon was well advanced when Burgo went on deck to stretch his legs and enjoy a smoke. By that time they were out of sight of land. True to the promise he had given, Burgo asked no questions. To him it mattered not at all where they were, or for what port they were bound. He had achieved all that he wanted. He had rescued his uncle from the fate which had too surely threatened him, and the girl he loved was here on board with him. What more could any reasonable being long for? He felt that he would have been quite content to go on voyaging in the Naiad for an indefinite period. To-day he was more like the Burgo Brabazon of other days than he had been since the date of that memorable meeting in Great Mornington Street when he and Lady Clinton crossed weapons for the first time.
By-and-by Miss Roylance came on deck. Sir Everard was sleeping soundly, and might be left for a little while.
Marchment had a deck chair brought for her, and she sat for upwards of an hour, drinking in the briny life-giving air and enjoying the novelty of the scene and its surroundings.
In the afternoon the long-threatened rain began to fall, and they seemed to have got into one of those cross seas which are apt to make non-sailors feel somewhat qualmish. Marchment and the crew had donned their oilskins.
In the dusk of the afternoon Burgo again went on deck and found a sheltered nook abaft the funnel where his pipe would not be put out by the rain. They were now well within sight of land again, and in point of fact were leisurely skirting, at a distance of three or four miles, a rocky picturesque-looking coast which stretched as far as the eye could reach nearly due north and south of their course.
Some hours later, long after night had fallen, the screw of the Naiad ceased to revolve, an intermission which Miss Roylance, at any rate, did not fail to appreciate. Then presently (as it appeared to those below) a boat seemed to put off from the yacht and other boats to put out to her from the shore. There was the tramp of many footsteps and a confused murmur of many voices, and to Burgo it seemed as if the contents of the hold, or part of them--whatever they might consist of--were being brought up by degrees and transferred to the boats; yet all was done with such an evident caution and such an absence of more noise than was absolutely unavoidable, that if there had been some one on board in extremis greater care could scarcely have been used. In less than an hour and a half the last boat left the yacht, and then, after a few minutes\' interval, the screw began slowly to revolve.
While this mysterious business had been going forward all lights below deck had been extinguished. Marchment had apologised, almost humbly, for the necessity he was under of asking his guests to so far oblige him; but, as Mr. Brabazon told him, his guests would only have been too glad had they been called upon to oblige him in some matter of far greater moment than that.
When Burgo went on deck at an early hour next morning the Naiad was again out of sight of land. Presently he was joined by Marchment, who said, "I got rid of my business last evening, and am now my own master. Perhaps you will ask Sir Everard in the course of the morning what his programme is, provided he has one. If he would like a few days\' cruise in the yacht, I and it are wholly at his service. On the other hand, if he would prefer to be landed at some port within, say, a couple of hundred miles of where we are, we are equally at his command."
"Marchment, you are weighing us down with obligations which we can never repay. But may I be permitted to ask whereabouts on the map of Europe we are just now?"
"It will perhaps be near enough to satisfy you if I tell you that we are within a score miles of the Mull of Galloway."
When the subject was mentioned to the baronet and he had taken time to think it over, he said that if it would not be inconveniencing Mr. Marchment too much, he should like to be landed at Ardrossan. He had an old friend living within a dozen miles of that place whom he had not seen for years, and who had lately acquired some very rare Byzantine coins which he, Sir Everard, was particularly desirous of examining.
Accordingly the yacht\'s head was put about and Ardrossan made in due course. There Marchment and his new-found friends took leave of each other, not without many expressions of hearty goodwill on both sides, one may be sure. As for Burgo and Marchment, they by no means intended to lose touch of each other in time to come.
It was three weeks later. Sir Everard, Miss Roylance, and Burgo were still at Hazeldean, where the Marrables had accorded them the heartiest of welcomes, and with that large-hearted hospitality for which they were noted, would not hear of their leaving short of a month at the very soonest. Besides, Sir Everard was "picking up wonderfully," as Mrs. Marrable termed it The bracing Scotch air had proved the finest of tonics, and it would be a thousand pities for him to quit Hazeldean with his cure only half accomplished.
But although the baronet and Burgo were going to stay on a while longer, the eve of Miss Roylance\'s departure was come. A cousin of her mother, a widow lady of mature years, of whose existence Dacia had hardly been aware, had found her out quite by accident, and had written her such a pressing invitation to go and visit her in Edinburgh, where she resided, and stay with her for as long as she liked, that, under the circumstances in which she was placed, the girl felt she had no option but to accept the offer. She and Burgo had spent a very happy time together; the more they saw of each other the stronger became the bond of attraction between them. Although no word of love had been spoken, each knew the other\'s secret. They had been happy from day to day, as children are happy, and had not troubled themselves about the future. But such halcyon moments could not last for ever, and this sudden summons must necessarily bring them to an end.
It was not likely, however, that Burgo would consent to let Dacia go without coming to an understanding with her. But indeed, whether she stayed or went, he told himself that further silence on his part might be construed into a proof of dilatoriness, and that was one of the last of a lover\'s crimes which he would willingly have had imputed to him.
So now, on the eve of Dacia\'s departure--she was to start almost immediately after breakfast next morning--he sought his opportunity and found it.
It was a mild November afternoon, overcast for the most part, yet with now and then a passing gleam of pallid sunshine. Not a breath of air fluttered the last poplar leaves which still hung, ragged and forlorn, on the two tall trees that fronted the house. There seemed a hush over all things; it was as though the dying year lay with shut eyes and folded hands awaiting its end. Sir Everard, together with his host and hostess, had gone in the brougham to visit some archaeological remains a dozen miles away. Our young people had the house to themselves. It was possible that kind-hearted Mrs. Marrable had had some hand in this arrangement. She was a born matchmaker, and had quite early seen how the land lay as between Burgo and Dacia, while it was equally a matter of course that her husband should not have seen anything.
The grounds at Hazeldean were extensive, and Dacia, hampered as she was with her crutch, found them quite ample enough to wander about in. She and Burgo had been strolling about for half an hour or more, when they came to a seat fixed at a point from which an especially fine view was to be had. Here they sat down as they had many times before. It was not often that Burgo was absent-minded, but he had been so to-day, and for the last ten minutes he had hardly spoken a word. Dacia had made no attempt to break his spell of silence, but had glanced at him once or twice a little timorously. Had she any prevision of what it was he was about to say to her?
He had been staring straight before him for some little time, but seeing nothing save some inner vision of his own. Suddenly he turned, and bending his glowing eyes full upon her, said: "And so you are going to leave us to-morrow; but for how long, Dacia?--that is the question, for how long?"
It was not the first time by several that he had called her by her baptismal name, and she did not seem to resent the liberty.
"You know what my cousin, Mrs. Croxford, said in her letter," she replied in a low voice. "She virtually offers me a home. Although we have never met, she is my nearest living relative, and I have no option but to go to her."
"But not to stay with her............