“I think so, sir. If I may say so, I never saw Miss Nell in such a glow. It quite took me aback, the way she looked at the Captain. Rose will have it he was sent by Providence.”
“Maybe. He comes in the very nick of time, at all events. What’s the name of my attorney? It ain’t Raythorne—he died years ago. Who’s the fellow that succeeded him?”
“Mr. Marshside, sir,” said Winkfield wonderingly.
“Marshside! Ay, that’s it! Hold this damned paper steady for me!”
He began to write, slowly, and with a little difficulty. “When does the mail reach London?”
“I’m told they do the journey in sixteen-and a-half hours now, sir. It should reach the General Post Office at about ten in the evening, though it hardly seems possible.”
“Glad I don’t travel by it!”
“No, sir, very uncomfortable it must be, racing along at such a pace.”
Sir Peter grunted, and dipped his pen in the ink again. By the time he had scrawled his signature at the foot of the single sheet, he was a good deal exhausted, and his hand was shaking. Winkfield took the pen from between his fingers. “There, sir, you don’t need to do any more. I’ll seal it up, and direct it for you.”
“Marshside—somewhere in Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” Sir Peter muttered.