“I’ve brought it over from the Haven, and it’s lying anchored at the foot of the Chine. If at any time you care to use it, old Dan Truefitt will act skipper; he’s perfectly trustworthy; and he has my orders.”
It struck Aureole how delightfully ironical it would be to employ Stuart’s boat—just Stuart’s boat—for the means of transport, when she and Bertram escaped from the old to the new. At present, her chiefest joy in the prospect of the elopement, was in contemplating Stuart’s reception of the tidings. And if the latter should come to him flavoured by the final audacity of his property as the vehicle of sin——!
“Thank you, Stuart,” demurely; “it’s very thoughtful of you; and it’s so difficult, now that the real summer weather is over, to keep everyone amused. We play coon-can, of course. But there’s something more virile about sailing, isn’t there?”
“Much more virile,” he agreed. And wondered if his bait had been swallowed. At all events, he must assume it had. He calculated that the pair would not make their flight by day, both for practical reasons of concealment, and from a sense of atmosphere. On the other hand, Aureole would scarcely wait for the arrival of her ‘gaoler’ from town, by the 7.40 train every evening. Between six and seven, then, the twilight hour, he fixed as the time when two cloaked figures might be expected at the foot of the Chine, where the boat lay at anchor. At this spot, therefore, in the shadow of the cliff, Stuart waited secretly, patiently, every evening between six and seven o’clock. Baldwin demanded frequently why he left the office so early; and confided to Arthur Heron that he believed Stuart to be mixed up in “some affair with a woman.”
—“Would you advise me to move in the matter?”
“No,” replied Uncle Arthur, always inclined to be taciturn.
“Not find out who she is? and call on the female? and attempt to square her?”
“No.”
“Well then, shall I tackle Stuart? Remind him what he owes to the name? Set forth, from experience, how helpless a young fellow can be in the hands of a clever adventuress? Tell him——”