t out!" says I.

"I think I have," was the cool answer. "When I heard about your precious
master paying off the regular crew of the yacht I put the circumstance
by in my mind, to be brought out again and sifted a little as soon as
the opportunity offered. It offered in about half an hour. Says I to the
gauger, who was the principal talker in the room: 'How about those
men that Mr. Smith paid off? Did they all go as soon as they got their
money, or did they stop here till they had spent every farthing of it in
the public-houses?' The gauger laughs. 'No such luck,' says he, in the
broadest possible Scotch (which I translate into English, William, for
your benefit); 'no such luck; they all went south, to spend their money
among finer people than us--all, that is to say, with one exception. It
was thought the steward of the yacht had gone along with the rest, when,
the very day Mr. Smith sailed for the Mediterranean, who should turn up
unexpectedly but the steward himself! Where he had been hiding, and why
he had been hiding, nobody could tell.' 'Perhaps he had been imitating
his master, and looking out for a wife,' says I. 'Likely enough,' says
the gauger; 'he gave a very confused account of himself, and he cut all
questions short by going away south in a violent hurry.' That was enough
for me: I let the subject drop. Clear as daylight, isn't it, William?
The steward suspected something wrong--the steward waited and
watched--the steward wrote that anonymous letter to your mistress. We
can find him, if we want him, by inquiring at Cowes; and we can send
to the church for legal evidence of the marriage as soon as we are
instructed to do so. All that we have got to do now is to go back
to your mistress, and see what course she means to take under the
circumstances. It's a pretty case, William, so far--an uncommonly pretty
case, as it stands at present."

We returned to Darrock Hall as fast as coaches and post-horses could
carry us.

Having from the first believed that the statement in the anonymous
letter was true, my mistress received the bad news we brought calmly
and resignedly--so far, at least, as outward appearances went. She
astonished and disappointed Mr. Dark by declining to act in any way on
the information that he had collected for her, and by insisting that the
whole affair should still be buried in the profoundest secrecy. For the
first time since I had known my traveling companion, he became depressed
in spir