‘Good morning,’ began Miss Llewellyn. ‘Ilfracombe wrote me word I might expect to see you, Mr Sterndale, but I have no idea for what purpose.’
‘Perhaps not, madam,’ was the reply, ‘but it will soon be explained. Have you heard from his lordship lately?’
Miss Llewellyn raised her head proudly.
‘I hear constantly, as you know. Ilfracombe is well, I am thankful to say, and apparently enjoying himself. He has made some pleasant acquaintances in Valetta, and they are urging him to stay on with them a little longer. Else he would have returned before now. He is longing to get home again, I know.’
‘Ah, perhaps, very likely,’ replied Mr Sterndale, who was fumbling with some papers he held in his hand. ‘Indeed, I have no doubt his lordship will be back before long—when he has completed another little trip he has in contemplation to the Grecian Isles.’
Nell’s face assumed a look of perplexity.
‘Another yachting trip, and not homewards? Oh, I think you must be mistaken, Mr Sterndale, or are you saying it to tease me? He has been gone four months already, ever since the fifth of April, and I am expecting to hear he has started for home by every mail. What has put such an idea into your head?’
‘No one less than his lordship himself, Miss Llewellyn. In a letter from him, dated the beginning of the month, but which, for reasons which I will explain hereafter, I have not thought fit to bring to you till now, he distinctly says that when certain arrangements which he is making in Malta are completed, he intends to sail for the Grecian Isles, and does not expect to be home at Thistlemere till late in the autumn.’
Nell looked fearfully anxious and distressed.
‘I cannot believe it,’ she said incredulously. ‘Why should Ilfracombe make such arrangements without consulting me first? He always has done so. I might have wished to join him in Malta. We have been separated for such a long time now—longer than ever before, and I have told him how sick and weary I am of it—how I long to see him again.’