“Tell me now!”
“No.” And she evaded me, and gained the door. “I must go. Oh, it’s all a ruin now—Auntie’ll be furious. And what shall I say?”
“Give her sealed orders, and my love! And when do I get mine?”
“In five minutes.”
She was gone.... And after some moments, rapt as I was at her late presence, which still seemed to fill the room like the fragrance, like the fragrance of her hair which still lingered in my senses, I looked about, sighing for that she was gone. Then I noted that our friend Partial had gone with her. “Fie! Partial, after all, you loved her more!” I said to myself.
But in a few moments I heard a faint sound at my door. I opened. There stood Partial in the dusk, gravely wagging his tail, looking at me without moving his head. And I saw that he held daintily in his mouth a dainty note, addressed to me in the same handwriting as that on the note I had sent out from the heartless jade to yon varlet. And it was sealed, and marked with instructions for its opening.... “When You Two Varlets Meet.” No more.
“Peterson,” said I, advancing to the forward deck, where I found him smoking, “I’ve been getting up some correspondence, since we’ll be ashore by to-morrow noon——”
“—I don’t know as to that, Mr. Harry.”
“Well, I know about it. So, tell Williams that, even if he has to work all night, we must be moving as soon as it’s light enough to see. I’ve got a very important message——”
“By wireless, Mr. Harry?” chuckled the old man.