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Carstairs's bitter disappointment over the collapse of his all but triumphant scheme he could not for the life of him give them any attention whatever. A far nearer and more vital matter was pressing upon his mind and heart. To tell her everything at the moment when the yacht had swung back and he had thrown up his commission forever had been his first strong impulse.
That broke the spell; and Varney, interested by the discovery that his heart was beating above normal, slipped unseen from his lurking-place, and resumed his interrupted progress after Peter and Hare. Beyond the Carstairs's fence of hedge, the houses stopped with the sidewalk.
Carstairs, whose emotions at the time were hardly fully understood in the yellow cottage, called daily and sent beautiful roses and chicken jelly. The roses faded and the chicken jelly was considerably enjoyed by the nurses. But from Mrs. Carstairs's daughter, whose filial relations had invoked all these things, there came neither flower nor word. The fight had taken place upon a Thursday night.
Passing the town-wharf laggingly like the maimed thing she was, limping nearer and nearer the spot whence she had set out three-quarters of an hour before, Mr. Carstairs's Cypriani slowed down at an abandoned private landing the same one by which Peter's trunk had been conveyed ashore that morning and ran out her stairs.
'Toffy was travelling at night to save hotel bills, you know and there was a breakdown because he didn't quite understand the Carstairs's machine, which he had borrowed; so poor Toffy came off second best; but Jane patched him up most beautifully, and Martin said he had better have the blue room.
"What better proof d'you want than the rogue's face? Why didn't you fire him on the spot?" "I neither hire nor fire here," said Varney. "These are Mr. Carstairs's employees. He will have to deal with them as he thinks best." He rose immediately and put on his hat. "With Mr. Higginson, however," he mused, starting for the stair, "the case is altogether different."
Confound it! this is getting rather intimate, but here is Mrs. Carstairs's letter giving a partial consent to the thing. It just got in this afternoon; he sent for me the minute he'd read it, I believe, and I never saw a man more excited." He pulled a scrawled and crossed note-sheet from his pocket, and read in a guarded and slightly embarrassed voice: HUNSTON, 25th of September.
"Why," said Mary, in sudden surprise, "we are going!" So Elbert Carstairs's dream had come true, and his daughter was going home to him at his desire.
The heavy storm had scoured the air, and the world was bright as a new pin. In the shaded solitude of the after-deck, Mr. Carstairs's agent sat in an easy-chair with a cigarette, and thought over the remarkable happenings of his first night in Hunston. Certainly it appeared as if the hand of intelligent destiny must have been in it somewhere.
"I do, sir. To the menootest detail." "If you carry the matter through, you may rely upon Mr. Carstairs's gratitude. If, on the other hand, you fail " "Oh, I'll not fail, sir. Have no fear of that." "I am speaking to you man to man, Ferguson, when I say, for God's sake don't."
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