“Yes!  Ah!” Tinman inhaled the praise.  “No, no; I don’t want to be puffed,” he said.  “Remember cook.  I have,” he continued, meditatively, “rarely found my plan fail.  But mind, I give the Crickledons notice to quit to-morrow.  They are a pest.  Besides, I shall probably think of erecting villas.”

“How dreadful the wind is!” Mrs. Cavely exclaimed.  “I would give that girl Annette one chance more.  Try her by letter.”

Tinman despatched a business letter to Annette, which brought back a vague, unbusiness-like reply.  Two days afterward Mrs. Cavely reported to her brother the presence of Mr. Fellingham and Miss Mary Fellingham in Crikswich.  At her dictation he wrote a second letter.  This time the reply came from Van Diemen: 

     “My dear Martin,—­Please do not go on bothering my girl.  She does
     not like the idea of leaving me, and my experience tells me I could
     not live in the house with you.  So there it is.  Take it friendly. 
     I have always wanted to be, and am,
                                        “Your friend,
          
                                             “Phil.”

Tinman proceeded straight to Elba; that is, as nearly straight as the wind would allow his legs to walk.  Van Diemen was announced to be out; Miss Annette begged to be excused, under the pretext that she was unwell; and Tinman heard of a dinner-party at Elba that night.

He met Mr. Fellingham on the carriage drive.  The young Londoner presumed to touch upon Tinman’s private affairs by pleading on behalf of the Crikledons, who were, he said, much dejected by the notice they had received to quit house and shop.

“Another time,” bawled Tinman.  “I can’t hear you in this wind.”

“Come in,” said Fellingham.

“The master of the house is absent,” was the smart retort roared at him; and Tinman staggered away, enjoying it as he did his wine.

His house rocked.  He was backed by his sister in the assurance that he had been duped.

The process he supposed to be thinking, which was the castigation of his brains with every sting wherewith a native touchiness could ply immediate recollection, led him to conclude that he must bring Van Diemen to his senses, and Annette running to him for mercy.

He sat down that night amid the howling of the storm, wind whistling, water crashing, casements rattling, beach desperately dragging, as by the wide-stretched star-fish fingers of the half-engulphed.

He hardly knew what he wrote.  The man was in a state of personal terror, burning with indignation at Van Diemen as the main cause of his jeopardy.  For, in order to prosecute his pursuit of Annette, he had abstained from going to Helmstone to pay moneys into his bank there, and what was precious to life as well as life itself, was imperilled by those two—­ Annette and her father—­who, had they been true, had they been honest, to say nothing of honourable, would by this time have opened Elba to him as a fast and safe abode.