"I wouldn't count too much on that," smiled the purser. "Nobody is very particular in Spanish possessions, and it's quite possible they lost your message or couldn't decipher the English name. We shall fill up here with tourists, and if you are going home with us you must let me know."
"I can't tell you now," Dane said. "It depends on what I hear ashore."
"Well, I won't keep a berth for you."
He left Dane troubled when he turned away, for he had certainly expected Chatterton to welcome him and he had counted the days until he could ask Lilian an eventful question. He had hoped also that the cable message would have prepared them for his tidings; he shrank from again appearing unexpectedly as the bearer of tragic news. There was no time to be lost, however, and he went ashore in the first boat. Strange faces looked down at him from the mole, and no friendly voice was raised in greeting; and further annoyance awaited him when he hurried into the hotel.
Mr. Chatterton and family had stayed there for a time, but had left, the major-domo said. He thought they had gone to Madeira, but they might have sailed for England, or anywhere. It was not his business to ask where any Englishman wandered to, but the clerk might know. The clerk, it appeared, was out, and might not be back for an hour or so, but the major-domo suggested that in the meantime something might be gathered by an examination of the visitors' letters in his office. He showed Dane where the office was, and then shrugged his shoulders.
"What pity! Ramon he have lock the door," he said.
"That's a very small obstacle," answered Dane. "Nobody else has a key, I suppose, so I'm going to get in through the window, and I will most certainly break it if he has fastened that up, too."
There were murmurs of protest, and Dane fancied that half the staff gathered in the hall and watched him endeavor to wrench the sash out by main force. When he had almost accomplished it, somebody suggested that when Ramon locked the front door he usually left one at the side open. It was a characteristic example of how things are managed in Latin countries; and the next minute Dane was busy turning over a bundle of letters in the office. There were several for Thomas and Mrs. Chatterton, and the sight of them filled him with satisfaction. Then his eye was caught by his own name on the top of two envelopes reforwarded to Chatterton, and after a swift glance at the embossed name on the back, he tore the first open.
It was from a celebrated engineering firm, and his blood pulsed faster as he read it:
"Although when you last called upon us we could not quite see our way to do so on the terms you mentioned, we are now prepared to undertake the manufacture and sale of your invention on the following conditions."