girl, not half
good enough for Robert; but I _do_ love him, and I never loved anybody
else; and I _do_ love you."

When she had left, Michael rose from his bed. His faith remained
unchanged, but it presented itself to him in a different shape. A new
and hitherto unnoticed article in his creed forced itself before him.
God's hand--for it _was_ God's hand--had plucked him out of the sea and
brought him back to life. What did that mean? Ah! what was he?--a worm
of the earth! How dare he lift himself up against the Almighty's
designs? The Almighty asked him the question eternally repeated to us,
which He had asked thousands of years ago, "Where wast thou when I laid
the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. . . .
Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings forward to the
south?" "The hawk flies not by my wisdom," murmured Michael to himself,
"nor doth the eagle at my command make her nest on high. Ah, it is by
His wisdom and at His command; how should I dare to interfere? I see
it--I see it all now. 'I have uttered that I understood not; things too
wonderful for me, which I knew not.'" After his fashion and through his
religion he had said to himself the last word which can be uttered by
man. He knelt down and prayed, and although he was much given to
extempore prayer, he did not, in this his most intense moment, go beyond
the prayer of our Lord, which, moreover, expressed what he wanted better
than any words of his own. "_Thy will_," he repeated, "_Thy_ will." His
one thought now was his son, but he knew not where to find him. He went
out and he saw his man, David Trevenna.

"He was off in a hurry; only just caught the coach," said David.

"Who? What coach?"

"Why, Robert; going to Plymouth."

Michael did not answer, but hurried to his stable where his little pony
was kept, and put him in the light cart. He told his wife that he had
some business in Plymouth with Robert, packed up a few things, took some
money, and in a few minutes was on the Truro road. At Truro he found the
mail, and within twelve hours he was at Plymouth. Dismounting, he asked
eagerly if they had a young man at the inn who had come from Cornwall the
day before.

"What, one as is waiting for the packet?"

"Yes," said Michael at a venture.

"Yes, he's here, but he isn't in just now. Gone out for a walk."

The one point in Plymouth to which everybody naturally turns is the Hoe,
and thither