that I very much want to know what
manner of lady is Captain Harry's wife; and that I could not ask you
point-blank because you would have set the question down to idle
curiosity. . . . It might make all the difference to him," she added,
getting no answer.

"A child of eight, and the country at war!" Mr. Hanmer muttered.
"His father must know that we cruise ready for action."

"I tell you, sir, what Dicky told me this morning."

"But it's impossible!"

"To that, sir, I might find you half a dozen answers. To begin with, we
all know--and Sir Oliver perhaps, from private information, knows better
than any of us--that peace is in sight. Here in the northern Colonies
it has arrived already; the enemy has no fleet on this side of the
world, and on this coast no single ship to give you any concern."

"Guarda-costas? There may be a few left on the prowl, even in these
latitudes. I don't believe it for my part; we've accounted for most of
'em. Still--"

"And Captain Harry thinks so much of them that he sails from Carolina to
Boston with his bride on board!"

"You are right, Miss Josselin, and you are wrong. . . . Mistress Vyell
has come to Boston in the _Venus_; and by reason that her husband, when
he started, had as little acquaintance with fear for others as for
himself. But if she return to Carolina it will be by land or when peace
is signed. Love has made the Captain think; and thought has made him--
well, with madam on board, I am thankful--" He checked himself.

"You are thankful he did not sight a guarda-costa." She concluded the
sentence for him, and walked some way in silence, while he at her side
was silent, being angry at having said so much.

"Yet Captain Harry is recklessly brave?" she mused.

"To the last degree, Miss Josselin," Mr. Hanmer agreed eagerly. "To the
last degree within the right military rules. Fighting a ship's an art,
you see."

It seemed that she did not hear him. "It runs in the blood," she said.
She was thinking, fearfully yet exultantly, of this wonderful power of
women, for whose sake cowards will behave as heroes and heroes turn to
cowards.

They had outstripped the chairmen, and were at the gate of Sabines.
He held it open for her. She bethought her that his last two or three
sentences had been firmly spoken, that his voice had shaken off its
husky stammer, and on the impulse of realised power she took a fancy to
hear it tremble again.

"But if madam will not b