Those who were the head and front of the actual conspiracy came to Gilbert that night—drifting to him guiltily and secretly one after the other. Mr. Edward Stocker came first; and Mr. Edward Stocker was vaguely apologetic for his wife's brother.
"An anxiety to the family at all times, sir," said Mr. Stocker. "Clever man, of course, with much more dignity and much more of real gentlemanly feeling than ever I had, or am likely to have. Bit of genius in his way, sir." Mr. Stocker paused, and thoughtfully pulled at one ear as he looked at Gilbert. "I suppose it isn't necessary to ask where he's gone, sir?"
"I'm afraid not," replied the other. "He penetrated the secret of this place a little time back; he's making the most of his new freedom on the mainland—and I expect he's been cut off by the tide. He's safe enough; but it means that we must tell Bessie."
"I suppose so," said Mr. Stocker, with a long face. "And that also means that Mrs. Stocker and me will go back to Clapham. Well," he added, with a sigh—"the best of holidays must end."
Mr. Stocker had perhaps more gentlemanly feeling after all than he imagined; at the very moment of departure from Gilbert's hut he came back to him, to make a little set speech that had been in his mind evidently from the first. "I should like to say, sir, on behalf of self and Mrs. Stocker (although Mrs. Stocker may not think it absolutely necessary to speak for herself), I should like to say that we take it kind that people who force themselves on a gent like you, without so much as 'by your leave,' should have been so treated as I may say we have been. It isn't everyone that would go and put up with people that shoved themselves on him, and insisted on being shipwrecked with him—and even on being supported, like the early Christians, in rocks and caves of the earth. On behalf of self and Mrs. Stocker—I am very thankful, sir."
Mr. Jordan Tant came up the hill jubilantly enough; he carried his head almost defiantly. He was still a yard or two away, in fact, when he burst out with his great news.
"She accepts me! As I predicted, she accepts me!"
"That's not the most important thing on earth," retorted Gilbert. "What about this wretched old man who has suddenly disappeared, as his daughter supposes, and who will force us to tell the secret, and explain the false position in which we stand?"
"That scarcely matters to me now," said Tant. "My dear Enid is a woman of her word, and although I may be forced to return to civilization, she will I know go with me—understanding me better for the way in which I have risen to the occasion during our dangers and privations. She will say to herself—'If this man can behave in such a fashion amid unknown perils, and with the sea roaring and leaping about us—what will he not be like in the neighbourhood of a mere tame Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens?' That's what she will say; that's what she's already saying. Consequently, my dear Byfield, I don't mind how soon I go back to civilization."