"Well—you've won your woman; you can afford to play the deserter now," retorted Gilbert. "Go, by all means; I have a vision of you and Mrs. Ewart-Crane and the fair Enid, incongruously dressed, stepping daintily across to the mainland——"
"Where I shall immediately telegraph news of my safety, and proceed to buy a few rough garments with the money I still have, and which it has been impossible for me to spend in this place," broke in Jordan Tant. "Above all things, Byfield, I shall cherish the remembrance that in a fair and open field, when reduced almost to the condition of primitive men, I won her from you, as the better man. I always knew it; I was always certain that in me were qualities undeveloped by the artificial life I had led."
"You can believe that if you will," said Gilbert, laughing. "As for myself, the bottom seems to have dropped out of everything I ever contemplated doing, and I am living here a more artificial life than ever I lived in London. Take your way out into the world, my Tant—and be happy."
Meanwhile there were other happenings. Mr. Edward Stocker had deemed himself safe from his formidable spouse, and had perhaps grown a little careless under his new liberty; but it happened that on that particular night, when the little man had climbed the hill to Gilbert's hut, Mrs. Stocker had thought it prudent to follow him. She had marked his absence on other occasions; she who had forced from him every secret his unromantic life had known determined that she would force from him now any knowledge he possessed outside that she herself held. She listened outside the hut, and heard that talk of the mainland and of the absent Daniel Meggison; when Mr. Stocker, after his set speech, cautiously scrambled down the hill, Mrs. Stocker, scratching herself with briers, and gasping as she stumbled over the rough earth, followed him. Bessie being absent from the hut, Mrs. Stocker suddenly pounced upon Mr. Stocker, to his great alarm, and dragged him into that portion of the hut hitherto occupied by Bessie Meggison and herself.
"My dear—I've been for a little walk," faltered Edward Stocker, looking at her with a faint smile.
"Plotter and schemer!—so you thought you would keep everything from your Julia—did you?" she demanded, in a suppressed voice. "You had no objection to your wife being made a guy of for the amusement of those who consider themselves superior in station; you didn't care if she lived in a sort of cattle shed, without so much as a scrap of looking-glass or a comb for weeks on end; you didn't mind if she had to endure the pity of women who never really look anything at all unless they are dressed to death! What's this talk of the island and the mainland; and where is my brother?"
"My dear—we've really been very comfortable here," pleaded Edward Stocker. "It's been quite a new experience—the sort of holiday to talk to our friends about long years afterwards."
"I dare say," she sniffed. "Friends who have enjoyed the privileges of Margate or Ramsgate, or even Brighton, and worn respectable clothing with the best—with a special blouse for dinner in the evening. Holiday, indeed! I shall never be able to hold up my head again as long as I live."
"I'm extremely sorry," said Mr. Stocker. "What would you like me to do?"
"The moment this tide or whatever it is turns, you will conduct me to the mainland. There, after we have procured proper clothing, you will discover the best way to reach Clapham; and for the rest of your life you will remain there—respectably. No more gadding about after people with whom one is not really concerned. And don't you ever dare, Edward Stocker, to refer to this time as a holiday!"