His confidential clerk--an old man who had been with his father for many years, and who knew every intricacy of the business--wrote him a very long letter, dwelling upon the evil fortune which attended all their Australian transactions of late, and hinting at dishonesty and double-dealing on the part of Gilbert's cousin, Astley Fenton, the local manager.
The letter was a very sensible one, calculated to arouse a careless man from a false sense of security.

Gilbert was so much disturbed by it, that he determined upon going back to London by the earliest fast train next morning.

It was cutting short his holiday only by a few days.

He had meant to return at the beginning of the following week, and he felt that he had already some reason to reproach himself for his neglect of business.
He left Lidford happy in the thought that Captain Sedgewick and Marian were to come to London in October.

The period of separation would be something less than a month.