He held out his hand, and Dick, with an anxious face and bewildered eyes, clung to it.
"Here, I say, Drake; this is awful! You don't mean to say it's 'good-by'! I don't understand."
"I'm afraid it is," said Drake, pulling himself together, and forcing a smile. "I'm sorry to leave you, Dick; you and I have been good friends; but—well, the best of friends must part. I shall have gone to-night. I can catch the train. Look up Bardsley & Bardsley."
With a nod—the nod which we give nowadays when we are saying farewell with a broken heart—he turned the horse down the hill and rode away.
He tossed his things into a portmanteau, got the one available trap to carry them to the station, and caught the night mail. At Salisbury he changed for Southampton, and reached that flourishing port the next morning.
The sailing master of the Seagull happened to be on board when the owner of that well-known yacht was rowed alongside, and he hastened to the side and touched his hat as Drake climbed the ladder.
"Did you wire, my lord?" he asked. "I haven't had anything."
"No; I came rather unexpectedly," said Drake quietly. "Is everything ready?"
"Quite, my lord, or nearly so. I think we could sail, say, in half a dozen hours."
Drake nodded.