Fate beckons you, Leicester Dodson, and, though you proudly set your face against its decree, you cannot avoid the inevitable.
The captain, as he opened his bedroom window, saw Mr. Leicester Dodson's departure, and was rather surprised.
Captain Murpoint was too shrewd an observer of human nature not to have noticed Mr. Leicester's evident partiality for Miss Violet's society, and, although it would seem to be antagonistic to the captain's plans that the young man should be hanging about the house, yet, in reality, he was quite willing that Violet's attention should be absorbed by handsome Mr. Leicester, or any one else, so that it was drawn for the present from Captain Murpoint.
He could not understand Mr. Leicester's sudden flight, and Mr. Starling, when interrogated, could not very much enlighten him.
Jem or "Starling," as the captain now called him, entered his master's bedroom with the water for the bath, and found the captain still in bed, but with his head resting on one strong hand, and his face turned dreamily to the window.
Starling grunted his morning salutation, and the captain nodded.
"Go to the window," he said, "and tell me if that young Dodson's dogcart has come back; if I have calculated correctly, it has just had about time enough to get to the station and back."
"Without Mr. Leicester," replied Starling.
"Then he has gone to town," said the captain, springing out of bed and stretching himself thoughtfully. "Gone to town! What the deuce has he gone to town for?"
"That's what everybody wants to know," said Jem, from the next room, where he was spreading out the towels and pouring the water into the bath.
"Did you make friends with the people in the servants' hall at the Cedars?" asked the captain.
"I did, captain, obedient to your commands," said Jem with a wink. "And a very nice, genteel lot o' people they are, though I prefer the hall here, if there's any choice. Oh, yes, I walked up last night, permiscous like, and when they knew as I was your man they made me welcome, drawed me some of the best October and would 'a' opened a bottle of Madery, but I wouldn't hear on it--I allus was so modest. I had a cut of duck and a helpin' o' some sort o' cream with a long, furrin name----"