has left L---- weeks ago. What has all this to do with--"

"Patience, sir; hear me out. I was sent from L---- to this station (on
promotion, sir) a fortnight since last Friday, for there has been a good
deal of crime hereabouts; it is a bad neighbourhood, and full of
smugglers. Some days ago, in watching quietly near a lonely house, of
which the owner is a suspicious character down in my books, I saw, to my
amazement, Mr. Margrave come out of that house,--come out of a private
door in it, which belongs to a part of the building not inhabited by the
owner, but which used formerly, when the house was a sort of inn, to be
let to night lodgers of the humblest description. I followed him; he went
down to the seashore, walked about, singing to himself; then returned to
the house, and re-entered by the same door. I soon learned that he lodged
in the house,--had lodged there for several days. The next morning, a
fine yacht arrived at a tolerably convenient creek about a mile from the
house, and there anchored. Sailors came ashore, rambling down to this
town. The yacht belonged to Mr. Margrave; he had purchased it by
commission in London. It is stored for a long voyage. He had directed it
to come to him in this out-of-the-way place, where no gentleman's yacht
ever put in before, though the creek or bay is handy enough for such
craft. Well, sir, is it not strange that a rich young gentleman should
come to this unfrequented seashore, put up with accommodation that must be
of the rudest kind, in the house of a man known as a desperate smuggler,
suspected to be worse; order a yacht to meet him here; is not all this
strange? But would it be strange if he were waiting for a young lady?
And if a young lady has fled at night from her home, and has come secretly
along bypaths, which must have been very fully explained to her
beforehand, and is now near that young gentleman's lodging, if not
actually in it--if this be so, why, the affair is not so very strange
after all. And now do you forgive me, sir?"