"It may save trouble," he added apologetically. "I thought you wouldn't mind."
His foresight was justified. We drove slowly down to Southampton and arrived an hour before sunset, Joyce in one car with Maybury-Reynardson, Sturling with me in the other. I had anticipated that all ports and railway termini would be watched for a woman of Joyce's age and figure, and we were not allowed to board the tender without a challenge.
"My wife," Sturling explained brusquely. "Yes, be as quick as you can, please. I want to get her on board as soon as possible. Sturling--aide-de-camp to Lord Gartside, to Bombay by his own yacht. There she is, the _Ariel_, sailing to-morrow. These gentlemen? Mr. Merivale and Dr. Maybury-Reynardson. Friends of Lord Gartside. That all?"
As the tender steamed out I turned to mark the graceful lines of the _Ariel_. She was a clean, pretty boat at all times, and when I thought of the service she was doing two of her passengers, I could have kissed every plank of her white decks. Her mainmast flew the burgee of the R.Y.S., and the White Ensign fluttered at her stern; I remember the official reports had announced that the new governor would proceed direct to Bombay, calling only at Suez to coal. The Turkish flag flying at the foremast showed that Gartside was taking no steps to correct a popular delusion.
"Lady Raymond Sturling's" nurses arrived by an early train on Friday morning, followed at noon by Gartside in a special. We sailed at three. Paddy Culling sent wireless messages at four, four-thirty and five: "Sursum corda" was the first; "Keep your tails up" the second; and "Haste to the Wedding" completed the series.
I was not comfortable until we had passed out of territorial waters. Any one nurse may leave her patient and walk abroad in search of air and exercise: the second must not quit the house till the first has returned. I remembered that too late, when our two friends were already on board; and until I heard the anchor weighed, I was wondering if the same thought had stirred the sluggish imagination of the plain-clothes Yorkshireman. Whatever his suspicions, it appears that he did not succeed in making them real to Nigel. If he had there would have been no undignified raid on Adelphi Terrace next morning, and the feelings of one rising young statesman need not have been ruffled.