Finishing off the port had also meant beginning it, and the worthy butler's mind was not particularly clear.
“Was there any mention of Mr. Oscard's partner, Mr.—eh—Meredith?” asked Millicent, glancing at the clock.
“Yes, miss, there was that name, but I don't rightly remember in what connection.”
“It didn't say that he—” Millicent paused and drew in her breath with a jerk—“was dead, or anything like that?”
“Oh, no, miss.”
“Thank you. I—am sorry we missed Mr. Oscard.”
She turned and went back to Lady Cantourne, who was sitting in the carriage. And while she was dancing the second extra with the first comer at four o'clock the next morning, Guy Oscard was racing out of Plymouth Sound into the teeth of a fine, driving rain. On the bridge of the trembling tug-boat, by Oscard's side, stood a keen-eyed Channel pilot, who knew the tracks of the steamers up and down Channel as a gamekeeper knows the hare-tracks across a stubble-field. Moreover, the tug-boat caught the big steamer pounding down into the grey of the Atlantic Ocean, and in due time Guy Oscard landed on the beach at Loango.
He had the telegram still in his pocket, and he went, not to Maurice Gordon's office, but to the bungalow.
Jocelyn greeted him with a little inarticulate cry of joy.
“I did not think that you could possibly be here so soon,” she said.