"I believe they could," said Miss Nugent, gazing at her with admiration,
"if he wanted to be turned."

The ice thus broken, Mr. Hardy spent the following day or two in devising
plausible reasons for another visit. He found one in the person of Mr.
Wilks, who, having been unsuccessful in finding his beloved master at a
small tavern down by the London docks, had returned to Sunwich, by no
means benefited by his change of air, to learn the terrible truth as to
his disappearance from Hardy.

"I wish they'd Shanghaid me instead," he said to that sympathetic
listener, "or Mrs. Silk."

"Eh?" said the other, staring.

"Wot'll be the end of it I don't know," said Mr. Wilks, laying a hand,
which still trembled, on the other' knee. "It's got about that she saved
my life by 'er careful nussing, and the way she shakes 'er 'ead at me for
risking my valuable life, as she calls it, going up to London, gives me
the shivers."

"Nonsense," said Hardy; "she can't marry you against your will. Just be
distantly civil to her."

"'Ow can you be distantly civil when she lives just opposite?" inquired
the steward, querulously. "She sent Teddy over at ten o'clock last night
to rub my chest with a bottle o' liniment, and it's no good me saying I'm
all right when she's been spending eighteen-pence o' good money over the
stuff."