II
They all went down to the harbour to see him off—as is the custom when one's friends leave Sark. And when Charles Svendt had shaken hands with Margaret and Miss Penny—and had found a touch of comfort in the sympathetic droop of their faces—and had fancied Miss Penny's bright eyes were at once brighter and mistier than usual—and had thanked them again very humbly for all their kindness—he turned to say good-bye to Graeme.
"Come away, man!" said Jock cheerfully. "I'm coming too. Meg's given me a holiday, and I'm going to shake a free leg again in Guernsey—"
But Charles thought he saw through that.
"Don't you come on my account, Graeme"
"Not on your account at all, my boy, but the accounts of a good many shopkeepers over there which I've got to straighten out at once, while all the little differences are fresh in my mind. Something wrong in nearly all of them—some over, some under—and I'm still a bit of a business man though I do write books."
For, when Pixley went off to pack his portmanteau, Graeme had said to his wife, "Meg dear, what do you think of my going across to Peter Port with that young man? He'll have a bad black time all by himself. He's holding himself in before us, but when he's alone it'll all come back on him in a heap and he'll feel it."
And Margaret had said, "Yes, dear, go. You'll be a great comfort to him. I am very very sorry for him."
The last flicker of the waving handkerchiefs above the sea-wall, and their responsive wavings from the boat, had been abruptly cut by the intervening bastion of Les Lâches, but Charles Svendt still leaned with his arms on the rail and looked back as though he could pierce the granite cliff and see the girls still standing there, and Graeme stood patiently behind him.
He straightened up at last with a sigh.
"I'm glad I came," he said, "though if I'd had any idea what was going to happen I'd have drowned myself first. It's when one's in trouble"—as though this were a discovery of his own—"that one finds out how kind people can be."
"Yes, trouble has its uses. I had a deuce of a time for the first few weeks after I got here. Your dad had told me you and Margaret were to be married very shortly, and it knocked life into a cocked-hat for me—"
"That's what he would have liked. Do you know, Graeme, I've been thinking that it's just possible your marriage helped to precipitate matters with him. I don't know, of course; but if he has been juggling her money in any way, he may have been counting on a marriage between us to help straighten things. Then, when he heard nothing from me—"
"It's possible. But if it acted as quickly as all that, I'm afraid the chances for Margaret's portion are pretty small."
"Gad! That would hurt me more than anything. I shall do everything in my power—"
"I'm sure of it, my dear fellow. And you must understand that her money—whatever it is—has never entered into our calculations in any way. I knew nothing of it till Lady Elspeth Gordon told me, and I had it all settled on her before the wedding took place. If it is gone we can do without it."
And Charles Svendt, if he said nothing, thought all the more.