It was a gaunt, weather-beaten figure of a man that stepped out of the ferry-boat and grasped his hand; but there was that in his bearing and in his unshadowed eyes that told Desmond the chief of what he wished to know. For the rest, the greeting between them was of their race and kind.
"Well, old chap, how are you?"
"Deuced glad to see you back again."
"And—Quita?"
"Deuced glad also, I suspect."
"Uncommonly kind of you both keeping her all this while."
"Kind? It's been a privilege seeing so much of her. We shall grudge giving her up."
And Desmond bestowed a reflective glance on the man who guessed nothing of the revelation in store for him.
Their talk riding back to the station was fitful and fragmentary. All that remained to be said—and there was a good deal of it—would come out bit by bit, at odd moments, mainly under the influence of tobacco. In the meantime, their mutual satisfaction went deeper than speech; and it was enough.
At the drawing-room door they parted.