It was not until evening that he sat down to think what he should say to Cecilia. The need for haste was not so great in this case, but every hour was of value with respect to the letter Miss Hersey was forwarding to Gilbert. There was no knowing where he might be, nor how long it might take in reaching him, nor how many obstacles might rise upon the road home, even should he start the very day he received it. But, here, it was different. The sailor bit the top of his pen as he mused; many things had puzzled him and many things puzzled him still. He had received a shock on hearing of Cecilia’s intended marriage. In his own mind he had never doubted that she loved Speid, and this new placing of her affections was the last thing he expected; if there were no question of affection, then, so much the worse, in his eyes. He thought little of Fordyce and imagined that she thought little of him too. He had never supposed that money would so influence her, and his conclusion--a reluctant one--was that the extreme poverty which must be her portion, now Lady Eliza was gone, had driven her to the step. Granny Stirk’s news had opened his eyes to the probability that there were influences at work of which he knew nothing, and he was uncommon enough to admit such a possibility. When most people know how easily they could manage everybody else’s business, the astonishing thing is that they should ever be in straits on their own account. But it never astonishes them. Captain Somerville had the capacity for being astonished, both at himself and at other people; the world, social and geographical, had taught him that there is no royal road to the solution of anyone’s difficulties. The man who walks about with little contemptuous panaceas in his pocket for his friends’ troubles is generally the man whose hair turns prematurely gray with his own. What had Cecilia meant when she told the old woman, weeping, that she could not help herself? He would, at least, give her the chance of helping herself now, and she could take it or leave it as she chose. He was not going to advise her nor to make suggestions; he would merely tell her what he had done. He had no difficulty in justifying his act to his conscience; he justified it to his prudence by reflecting on what she had given the Queen of the Cadgers to understand; namely, that, if the exile should return, she would throw all to the winds for him. ‘My writing-table is to be dusted to-day, and I shall leave this here,’ he said to his wife on the following afternoon, as he put the letter he had written on the drawing-room mantelpiece; ‘if you can hear of anyone going in the direction of Fullarton, I should be glad to have it carried. It is to Miss Raeburn, in Edinburgh, so Mr. Fullarton must address it for me.’