‘I should like it above all things, sir,’ he stammered, ‘but if you will allow me to join you at the office to-morrow morning, I will be there at any hour you name. The fact is, I _must_ sit up to-night writing. This sudden stroke of fortune has brought a few cares with it. There is a little property of mine in the north that I must put at once into other hands, and my yacht--’ ‘Oh, you keep a yacht then!’ exclaimed Vansittart, rather surprised at the owner of such an expensive luxury jumping so readily at the offer he had made him. ‘I _did_ keep one before I experienced the heavy losses of which I have told you,’ resumed Godfrey, ‘and though she is let at present to a friend, I must make arrangements for her going to the hammer when his lease is up.’ In his anxiety to prevent any unlucky _contretemps_ revealing the true state of his domestic affairs, Godfrey Harland would have given himself a stable full of horses, and an opera box at Her Majesty’s, and a few dozen carriages to dispose of, in another minute, if his host, recognising the reasons he had already given as sufficient, had not cheerfully consented to his proposal to meet him at the offices of Messrs Stern & Stales on the morrow. And so, not quite knowing whether to be confounded or elated by his sudden run of luck, Harland bade his benefactors good-night. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. BREAKERS AHEAD. Godfrey Harland did not go home that night. He was contemplating the commission of a crime, and he felt little remorse upon the subject, but he dreaded the questioning of his wife as to where he had been and what he had been doing. Iris was a timid and long-suffering woman, but she had an unpleasant habit of looking one straight in the eyes whilst she waited for an answer, which made it most difficult to tell her a good lie, and stick to it. So the less he saw of her whilst he remained in England, he thought, the better, and he had already concocted an excuse for pretending to go into the country. He put up for the night at one of his low haunts, and despatched a dirty messenger for his clothes in the morning. As (punctual to his appointment) he walked up to the shipping office to meet his employer, he saw, already standing before it the handsome barouche with its thoroughbred bay steppers, that seemed like an earnest of his own future success. As he entered the office, which was crowded with clerks, messengers, seamen, and passengers, Mr Vansittart came forward and shook him warmly by the hand. ‘Punctual to a minute,’ he said, smiling; ‘that’s the proper way to do business. I see that you and me will get on first-rate together.’