he had no wish to thrust a probe.

The Admiral's weather-beaten face was a shade less red than usual; the
bright blue eyes he turned on the younger man were veiled with a film of
moisture. "Yes, the news has just come in, but it isn't to be made
public for awhile. It's the submarine _Neptune_ which was struck, with
Commander Dupre, Lieutenant Paritot, and ten men on board. The craft is
lying eighteen fathoms deep----"

Jacques de Wissant uttered an inarticulate cry--was it of horror or only
of surprise? And yet, gifted for that once and that once only with a
kind of second sight, he had known that it was the _Neptune_ and
Commander Dupre which lay eighteen fathoms deep on the floor of the sea.

The old seaman, moved by the mayor's emotion, relaxed into a
confidential undertone. "Poor Dupre! I had forgotten that you knew him.
He is indeed pursued by a malignant fate. As of course you are aware, he
applied a short time ago to be transferred to Toulon, and his
appointment is in to-day's _Gazette_. In fact he was actually leaving
Falaise this very evening in order to spend a week with his family
before taking up his new command!"

The Mayor of Falaise stared at the Admiral. "Dupre going away?--leaving
Falaise?" he repeated incredulously.

The other nodded.

Jacques de Wissant drew a long, deep breath. God! How mistaken he had
been! Mistaken as no man, no husband, had ever been mistaken before. He
felt overwhelmed, shaken with conflicting emotions in which shame and
intense relief predominated.

The fact that Commander Dupre had applied for promotion was to his mind
absolute proof that there had been nothing--nothing and less than
nothing--between the naval officer and Claire. The Admiral's words now
made it clear that he, Jacques de Wissant, had built up a huge
superstructure of jealousy and base thoughts on the fact that poor Dupre
and Claire had innocently enjoyed certain tastes in common. True, such
friendships--friendships between unmarried men and attractive young
married women--are generally speaking to be deprecated. Still, Claire
had always been "correct;" of that there could now be no doubt.

As he stood there on the pier, staring out, as all those about him and
behind him were doing, at the expanse of dark blue sun-flecked sea,
there came over Jacques de Wissant a great lightening of the spirit....

But all too soon his mind, his memory, swung back to the tragic business
of the moment.

Suddenly the