“Let me go!” said Natalie.

Launce only answered, “Say yes,” and held her as if he would never let her go again.

At the same moment Miss Lavinia’s voice rose shrill from the deck calling for Natalie.  There was but one way of getting free from him.  She said, “I’ll think of it.”  Upon that, he kissed her and let her go.

The door had barely closed on her when the lowering face of Richard Turlington appeared on a level with the side of the sky-light, looking down into the store-room at Launce.

“Halloo!” he called out roughly.  “What are you doing in the steward’s room?”

Launce took up a box of matches on the dresser.  “I’m getting a light,” he answered readily.

“I allow nobody below, forward of the main cabin, without my leave.  The steward has permitted a breach of discipline on board my vessel.  The steward will leave my service.”

“The steward is not to blame.”

“I am the judge of that.  Not you.”

Launce opened his lips to reply.  An outbreak between the two men appeared to be inevitable, when the sailing-master of the yacht joined his employer on deck, and directed Turlington’s attention to a question which is never to be trifled with at sea, the question of wind and tide.

The yacht was then in the Bristol Channel, at the entrance to Bideford Bay.  The breeze, fast freshening, was also fast changing the direction from which it blew.  The favorable tide had barely three hours more to run.

“The wind’s shifting, sir,” said the sailing-master.  “I’m afraid we shan’t get round the point this tide, unless we lay her off on the other tack.”

Turlington shook his head.

“There are letters waiting for me at Bideford,” he said.  “We have lost two days in the calm.  I must send ashore to the post-office, whether we lose the tide or not.”

The vessel held on her course.  Off the port of Bideford, the boat was sent ashore to the post-office, the yacht standing off and on, waiting the appearance of the letters.  In the shortest time in which it was possible to bring them on board the letters were in Turlington’s hands.

The men were hauling the boat up to the davits, the yacht was already heading off from the land, when Turlington startled everybody by one peremptory word—­“Stop!”

He had thrust all his letters but one into the pocket of his sailing jacket, without reading them.  The one letter which he had opened he held in his closed hand.  Rage was in his staring eyes, consternation was on his pale lips.

“Lower the boat!” he shouted; “I must get to London to-night.”  He stopped Sir Joseph, approaching him with opened mouth.  “There’s no time for questions and answers.  I must get back.”  He swung himself over the side of the yacht, and addressed the sailing-master from the boat.  “Save the tide if you can; if you can’t, put them ashore to-morrow at Minehead or Watchet—­wherever they like.”