"It followed me to Sark."
"Ah! you are back in Sark?"
"I thought it well to take my mother there, to be out of things for a time."
"Quite so, quite so! That was very thoughtful of you. This is a terrible calamity that has befallen us. But, as I said in my letter, I have every hope of being able to redeem matters if I can only get to where that is possible."
"Where's that?"
"Well, in the first place to Spain—"
"And afterwards?"
Mr. Pixley hesitated. "Perhaps—for your own sake—it would be as well you should not know—for the present, at all events. You may be asked questions. If you don't know, you can truthfully say so."
"I gather that you have funds put away somewhere."
"If I can get to where I want to go, I can at all events make a fresh start. And I am prepared to devote the rest of my life to the one object I have named.... The last few years have been very wearying. I have had trouble with my heart at times;" and he put his hand to his side to emphasise it. "But if I can get quietly away I shall soon pull round and be ready for work again, now that the strain is over."