The next instant Mr. Gilman himself entered the saloon.

“Mrs. Moncreiff,” he started nervously, in a confidential and deprecating tone, “this is the first chance I have had to tell you.  We came into Mozewater without my orders.  I won’t say against my orders, but certainly not with them.  On the plea that I had retired, Captain Wyatt changed our destination last night without going through the formality of consulting me.  We ought to have made Harwich, but I am now told that we were running short of paraffin, and that if we had continued to Harwich we should have had the worst of the tide against us, whereas in coming up Mozewater the tide helped us; also that Captain Wyatt did not care about trying to get into Harwich harbour at night with the wind in its present quarter, and rising as it was then.  Of course, Wyatt is responsible for the safety of the ship, and it is true that I had her designed with a very light draught on purpose for such waters as Mozewater; but he ought to have consulted me.  We might get away again on this tide, but Hortense will not hear of it.  She has a call to pay, she says.  I can only tell you how sorry I am.  And I do hope you will forgive me.”  The sincerity and alarm of his manly apology were touching.

“But, Mr. Gilman,” said Audrey, with the simplicity which more and more she employed in talking to her host, “there is nothing to forgive.  What can it matter to me whether we come here or go to Harwich?”

“I thought, I was afraid—­” Mr. Gilman hesitated.

“In short ... your secret, Mrs. Moncreiff, which you asked me to keep, and which I have kept.  It was here, at this very spot, with my old barge-yacht, that I first had the pleasure of meeting you.  And I thought ... perhaps you had reasons....  However, your secret is safe.”

“How nice you are, Mr. Gilman!” Audrey said, with a gentle smile.  “You’re kindness itself.  But there is nothing to trouble about, really.  Keep my little secret by all means, if you don’t mind.  As for anything else—­that’s perfectly all right....  Shall we go on deck?”

He thanked her without words.

She was saying to herself, rather desperately: 

“After all, what do I care?  I haven’t committed a crime.  It’s nobody’s business but my own.  And I’m worth ten million francs.  And if the fat’s in the fire, and anything is found out, and people don’t like it—­well, they must do the other thing.”

Thus she went on deck, and her courage was rewarded by the discovery of a chair on the starboard side of the deck-house, from which she could not possibly be seen by any persons on the Hard.  She took this chair like a gift from heaven.  The deck was busy enough.  Mr. Price, the secretary, was making entries in an account book.  Dr. Cromarty was pacing to and fro, expectant.  Captain Wyatt was arguing with the chauffeur of a vast motor-van from Clacton, and another motor-van from Colchester was also present