de, burst into peals of hysterical laughter.

"Oh," she cried, "it's all right, it's all right! Bill's safe----" and
her laughter turned to tears. "And I knew it all along..." she sobbed.

"Oh," said Betty, "I _am_ glad." She slipped her arm round Mrs.
Cavendish's neck and kissed her. "And now I'm just going to rush up to
my rooms to get my message." She paused on her way to the door. "Mrs.
Gascoigne," she said, "did you get any news--is your husband all right?"

Mrs. Gascoigne was opening the window with her back to the room and its
occupants. "He's very happy," she replied gently.

Betty ran out into the sunlit street and overtook the red-headed urchin
who was returning to the post office with the demeanour of a man
suddenly thrust into unaccustomed prominence in the world.
Furthermore, he had found the stump of a cigarette in the gutter, and
was smoking it with an air.

He grinned reassuringly at Betty as she hurried breathlessly past him.
"Dinna fash yersel', Mistress," he called. "Yeer man's bonny an' weel."

Betty halted irresolutely. "How do you know?" she gasped.

"A juist keeked inside the bit envelope," came the unblushing reply.

* * * * *

The first rays of the rising sun were painting the barren hills with
the purple of grape-bloom, and laying a pathway of molten gold across
the waters when the Battle Squadrons returned to their bases. A few
ships bore traces in blackened paintwork, shell-torn funnels and
splintered upperworks, of the ordeal by battle through which they had
passed; but their numbers, as they filed in past the shag-haunted
cliffs and frowning headlands, were the same as when they swept out in
an earlier gloaming to the making of History.

Colliers, oilers, ammunition lighters and hospital ships were waiting
in readiness to replenish bunkers and shell-rooms and to evacuate the
wounded. All through the day, weary, grimy men, hollow-eyed from lack
of sleep, laboured with a cheerful elation that not even weariness
could extinguish. Shrill whistles, the creaking of purchases, the
rattle of winches and the clatter of shovels and barrows combined to
fill the air with an indescribable air of bustle and the breath of
victory. Even the blanched wounded exchanged jests between clenched
teeth as they were hoisted over the side in cots.

Before the sun had set the Battle-Fleet, complete with coal, ammunition
and torpedoes, was ready for action once more.