It took half an hour more, with all my efforts, before he could make up his mind that the letter would do.

I started off with it at a gallop, and never drew rein till I got to the sea-port town.
The harbor-clock chimed the quarter past eleven as I rode by it, and when I got down to the jetty there was no yacht to be seen.

She had been cast off from her moorings ten minutes before eleven, and as the clock struck she had sailed out of the harbor.

I would have followed in a boat, but it was a fine starlight night, with a fresh wind blowing, and the sailors on the pier laughed at me when I spoke of rowing after a schooner yacht which had got a quarter of an hour's start of us, with the wind abeam and the tide in her favor.
I rode back with a heavy heart.

All I could do now was to send the letter to the post-office, Stockholm.
The next day the doctor showed my mistress the scrap of paper with the message on it from my master, and an hour or two after that, a letter was sent to her in Mr.Meeke's handwriting, explaining the reason why she must not expect to see him at the Hall, and referring to me in terms of high praise as a sensible and faithful man who had spoken the right word at the right time.