"All right," said he; "give me that, and I'll take you to Stipbitts."
The bargain was struck, I was taken to Stipbitts, and an hour afterward I was on my way to my home at Arden.
There was one very satisfactory feature about this course of action: it was plain and simple, and needed no planning. To attempt to follow the yacht would be useless. To wait anywhere for Walkirk would be equally so. He would be more apt to find me at my home than anywhere else. It was his business to find me, and there was no doubt that he would do it. I did not like to defer my intended interview with Mrs. Raynor, but it could not be helped. And as for Sylvia, if she had resolved to return to the House of Martha, the best place for me was the neighborhood of that institution.
I found my home at Arden very empty and dreary. The servants did not expect me, my grandmother had not returned, and the absence of Walkirk added much to my dissatisfaction with the premises.
I was never a man who could sit down and wait for things to happen, and I felt now that it was absolutely necessary that I should do something, that I should talk to somebody; and accordingly, on the morning after my arrival, I determined to walk over to the House of Martha and talk to Mother Anastasia. For a man to consult with the Mother Superior of a religious institution about his love affairs was certainly an uncommon proceeding, with very prominent features of inappropriateness; but this did not deter me, for, apart from the fact that there was no one else to talk to, I considered that Mother Anastasia owed me some advice and explanation, and without hesitation I went to ask for it.
When I reached the House of Martha, and made known my desire to speak to the head of the institution, I was ushered into a room which was barer and harder than I had supposed, from Walkirk's description of it. It did not even contain the religious pictures or the crucifixes which would have relieved the blankness of the walls in a Roman Catholic establishment of the kind.
As I stood gazing about me, with a feeling of indignation that such a place as this should ever have been the home of such a woman as Sylvia, a door opened, and Mother Anastasia entered.