“I wish that d—d Turk’s Head ‘ad rotted in the sea afore ever it kem aboard this craft,” he muttered. “There’s bin nothin’ but fuss an’ worry every hour since that bonny lass set her eyes on it. Onless I’m vastly mistaken it’ll bust up the cruise, an’ here was Chris an’ me fixed up to the nines for the nex’ three months. It’s too bad, that it is”—and the rest of his remarks became unfit for publication.
It would be interesting to learn how far Peter would have fallen from grace if he were told that the calabash was even then reposing in a portmanteau, by the side of Warden’s bunk. Happily, he was spared the knowledge. It would come in good time, but was withheld for the present.
Warden, restless as a caged lion, did not, as was his habit, bring a folding–chair to the shady side of the mainsail and lose himself in the pages of a book. A purpose in life of some sort became almost an obsession. Fixing on the Sans Souci’s known objective at the extreme southwestern corner of Wales on the following Wednesday, he suddenly hit upon the idea of walking across Dartmoor and taking a steamer from Ilfracombe to Swansea. Once committed to a definite itinerary of that nature there would be no turning back. He counted on being able to accomplish the first stage of the journey easily in three days, which would bring him to Ilfracombe on the Tuesday. The only question that remained was the uncertainty of the steamship service, and a telegram to the shipping agents would determine that point in an hour or less.
So Peter brought him ashore in the dinghy, and the message was despatched, and Warden went for a stroll on the Hoe, of which pleasant promenade he had hardly traversed a hundred yards when he saw Evelyn Dane seated there, deeply absorbed in a magazine. A bound of his heart carried conviction to his incredulous brain. Though the girl’s face was bent and almost hidden by her hat, she offered precisely the same harmonious picture that had so won his admiration when she sat opposite to him in the dinghy on that memorable afternoon that now seemed so remote in the annals of his life.
A few steps nearer, and he could no longer refuse to believe his eyes. He recalled the exact patterns of a brooch, a marquise ring, an ornament in her hat. Seating himself, with a rapid movement, quite close to her, he said softly:
“More, much more, the heart may feel
Than the pen may write or the lip reveal.”
Evelyn turned with a startled cry. She was conscious that some one had elected to share her bench; at the first sound of Warden’s voice she was ready to spring up and walk away, without looking at him. Her bright face crimsoned with delight when she grasped the wonderful fact that he was actually at her side.
She closed the magazine with a bang, and held out her hand.
“This is indeed a surprise,” she cried. “How in the world did you know I was here?”