streams of vehicles full of happy
people were returning from the Derby, including costers' donkey carts in
which the girls were carrying huge boughs of May blossom, and the boys
were wearing the girls' feathery hats, and at the top of their lusty
lungs they were waking the echoes of the stately avenue with the
"Honeysuckle and the Bee."

"_Yew aw the enny, Oi em ther bee,
Oi'd like ter sip ther enny from those red lips, yew see_."

As we came near our hotel we saw a rather showy four-in-hand coach,
called the "Phoebus," drawing up at the covered way in front of it, and
a lady on top, in a motor veil, waving her hand to us.

It was Alma, with my husband's and Mr. Eastcliff's party back from the
races, and as soon as we met on the pavement she began to pay me high
compliments on my improved appearance.

"Didn't I say the river air would do you good, dearest?" she said, and
then she added something else, which would have been very sweet if it
had been meant sweetly, about there being no surer way to make a girl
beautiful than to make her happy.

There was some talk of our dining together that night, but I excused
myself, and taking leave of Martin, who gave my hand a gentle pressure,
I ran upstairs without waiting for the lift, being anxious to get to my
own room that I might be alone and go over everything in my mind.

I did so, ever so many times, recalling all that had been said and done
by the commander and his comrades, and even by Treacle, but above all by
Martin, and laughing softly to myself as I lived my day over again in a
world of dream.

My maid came in once or twice, with accounts of the gorgeous Derby
dinner that was going on downstairs, but that did not matter to me in
the least, and as soon as I had swallowed a little food I went to bed
early--partly in order to get rid of Price that I might go over
everything again and yet again.

I must have done so far into the night, and even when the wings of my
memory were weary of their fluttering and I was dropping off at last, I
thought I heard Martin calling "shipmate," and I said "Yes," quite loud,
as if he had been with me still in that vague and beautiful shadow-land
which lies on the frontier of sleep.

How mysterious, how magical, how wonderful!

Looking back I cannot but think it strange that even down to that moment
I did not really know what was happening to me, being only conscious of
a great flood of joy. I cannot but think it stra