“I can come on board to-morrow. Will that do?” she asked.
“Certainly, madam, if it will not hurry you too much.”
“Not at all, Captain; I am sick of Sydney, and am only too glad to come on board the Maritana again.” She spoke with a friendly warmth, but Lester's distantly polite manner gave her no encouragement.
“Will you not stay and dine with me?” she asked, with a smile; “do say yes. I feel quite angry that my husband has not written to me. I am really a deserted wife. Don't you think so, Captain Lester?”
Her forced pleasantry was thrown away.
“I am very sorry, Mrs. Brabant, but as we are to sail to-morrow, I must hasten on board at once. There are many matters to which I must attend.”
He rose and bowed stiffly, and Nell Brabant extended her hand. He touched it, and in another moment was gone. She sank back in her chair with a white face and terror in her eyes. What did he mean by his cold and distant manner? Did he suspect anything? Did he know anything? How could he? Minea alone knew that she had left Sydney for a month with Danvers, and Minea would not betray her! What need to fear anything?
Then, satisfied with her own powers of intrigue, she smiled to herself, and dismissed Lester's cold face and unresponsive manner from her mind.
When Lester went on board again he took from his pocket a second letter from Brabant, which was marked “Private and Confidential,” and with a puzzled brow read it over again. “I want you, Lester, to attend carefully to my instructions. You are to consider my other letter as cancelled. I wish you, instead of coming to Tonga, to make all possible haste to 22 10' S. and 170 25' E. I shall meet you there or thereabouts in the Loelia.—Yours sincerely. J. B.”
“What does all this mystery mean, I wonder?” he muttered, as he looked at an outspread chart on the table; “why should he pick upon the vicinity of such a God-forsaken spot as Hunter's Island for a rendezvous? But it's none of my business.” Then he turned in and slept.