only knows where he is.
Sometimes it is more than I can bear, to live on in this dark and most
dreadful uncertainty. My medical man has forbidden me to speak of it.
But how can he know what it is to be a mother? But hush! Or darling
Faith may hear me. Sometimes I lose all self-command."

Mrs. Twemlow's eyes were in need of wiping, and stout Mrs. Stubbard's
in the same condition. "How I wish I could help you," said the latter,
softly: "is there anything in the world that I can do?"

"No, my dear friend; I wish there was, for I'm sure that it would be
a pleasure to you. But another anxiety, though far less painful, is
worrying me as well just now. My poor brother's son is behaving most
strangely. He hardly ever comes near us, and he seems to dislike my dear
husband. He has taken rooms over your brave husband's Office, and he
comes and goes very mysteriously. It is my duty to know something about
this; but I dare not ask Captain Stubbard."

"My dear Mrs. Twemlow, it has puzzled me too. But thinking that you knew
all about it, I concluded that everything must be quite right. What
you tell me has surprised me more than I can tell. I shall go to work
quietly to find out all about it. Mystery and secrecy are such hateful
things; and a woman is always the best hand at either."

CHAPTER XXI

A GRACIOUS MERCY

As a matter of course, every gunner at the fort was ready to make oath
by every colour of the rainbow, that never shot, shell, wad, sponge, or
even powder-flake could by any possibility have fallen on the beach. And
before they had time to grow much more than doubly positive--that is to
say, within three days' time--the sound of guns fired in earnest drowned
all questions of bad practice.

For the following Sunday beheld Springhaven in a state of excitement
beyond the memory of the very oldest inhabitant, or the imagination of
the youngest. Excitement is a crop that, to be large, must grow--though
it thrives all the better without much root--and in this particular
field it began to grow before noon of Saturday. For the men who were
too old to go to sea, and the boys who were too young, and the women
who were never of the proper age, all these kept looking from the best
lookouts, but nothing could they see to enable them to say when the
kettle, or the frying-pan, or gridiron, would be wanted. They rubbed
their eyes grievously, and spun round three times, if time had brought
or left them the power so to spin; a