"Then—then—" he stopped and swore—"then you may do what you like with me; marry me to whom you please, when you please, send me to the devil——."
He strode through the marble hall and called a cab. He ran up the steps of the Dorchester and confronted the patient Stephens.
"There's a telegram for me now, Stephens. Name of 'Yorke,' you know.
"No, sir, nothing for you," was the reply.
He turned at once, and going straight to the telegraph office in Regent Street, sent the following telegram to Mrs. Merrick:
"If Miss Lisle is not at Portmaris, send her address to Yorke, Regent Street Post Office. Reply, paid, at once."
"I'll wait," he said.
"It may be an hour, sir," said the young lady clerk.
"I'll wait if it's ten hours," he said.
He waited for an hour and a half, and then they handed him this: