He had not gone there at all.

At the last moment he could not face it, he felt; he must go somewhere away alone--by the sea.

A great storm was coming on--it suited his mood--so he had left even his servant in London and had gone off to a wild place on the Dorsetshire coast that he knew of, and there heard no news of any one.
He would go back on the Friday, and see Zara the next day, as he had said he would do.

Meanwhile he must fight his ghosts alone.

And what ghosts they were! Now on this Saturday morning Francis Markrute was obliged to leave his niece.