ve nothing more to say, sir, except to ask your pardon
for forgetting my proper place, and for making bold to speak on a very
serious matter as equal to equal, and as man to man."

To do Mr. Meeke justice, he had a heart, though it was a very small one.
He shook hands with me, and said he accepted my advice as the advice of
a friend, and so went back to his parsonage to write the letter. In half
an hour I called for it on horseback, but it was not ready for me. Mr.
Meeke was ridiculously nice about how he should express himself when he
got a pen into his hand. I found him with his desk littered with rough
copies, in a perfect agony about how to turn his phrases delicately
enough in referring to my mistress. Every minute being precious, I
hurried him as much as I could, without standing on any ceremony. It
took half an hour more, with all my efforts, before he could make up his
mind that the letter would do. I started off with it at a gallop, and
never drew rein till I got to the sea-port town.

The harbor-clock chimed the quarter past eleven as I rode by it, and
when I got down to the jetty there was no yacht to be seen. She had been
cast off from her moorings ten minutes before eleven, and as the clock
struck she had sailed out of the harbor. I would have followed in a
boat, but it was a fine starlight night, with a fresh wind blowing, and
the sailors on the pier laughed at me when I spoke of rowing after a
schooner yacht which had got a quarter of an hour's start of us, with
the wind abeam and the tide in her favor.

I rode back with a heavy heart. All I could do now was to send the
letter to the post-office, Stockholm.

The next day the doctor showed my mistress the scrap of paper with the
message on it from my master, and an hour or two after that, a letter
was sent to her in Mr. Meeke's handwriting, explaining the reason why
she must not expect to see him at the Hall, and referring to me in terms
of high praise as a sensible and faithful man who had spoken the right
word at the right time. I am able to repeat the substance of the letter,
because I heard all about it from my mistress, under very unpleasant
circumstances so far as I was concerned.

The news of my master's departure did not affect her as the doctor had
supposed it would. Instead of distressing her, it roused her spirit
and made her angry; her pride, as I imagine, being wounded by the
contemptuous manner in which her husband had notified his intent