"He mayn't come at all to-night," he said; "and I tell you I can't bear this suspense."
"Let me ride into Doncaster, then, John," urged Talbot; "and you stay here to receive Grimstone if he should come."
Mr. Mellish was considerably mollified by this proposition.
"Will you ride into the town, Talbot?" he said. "Upon my word, it's very kind of you to propose it. I shouldn't like to miss this man upon any account; but at the same time I don't feel inclined to wait for the chance of his coming or staying away. I'm afraid I'm a great nuisance to you, Bulstrode."
"Not a bit of it," answered Talbot, with a smile.
Perhaps he smiled involuntarily at the notion of how little John Mellish knew what a nuisance he had been through that weary day.
"I'll go with very great pleasure, John," he said, "if you'll tell them to saddle a horse for me."
"To be sure; you shall have Red Rover, my covert hack. We'll go round to the stables, and see about him at once."
The truth of the matter is, Talbot Bulstrode was very well pleased himself to hunt up the detective, rather than that John Mellish should execute that errand in person; for it would have been about as easy for the young squire to have translated a number of the 'Sporting Magazine' into Porsonian Greek, as to have kept a secret for half an hour, however earnestly entreated, or however conscientiously determined to do so.
Mr. Bulstrode had made it his particular business, therefore, during the whole of that day, to keep his friend as much as possible out of the way of every living creature, fully aware that Mr. Mellish's manner would most certainly betray him to the least observant eyes that might chance to fall upon him.