the
other boat were but shadows in the mist, they saw him, and a quick word
of command rang out.

"Row--row hard!" it cried, and with a frenzied churning of oars in the
water, the other boat shot by them, making down the estuary. Next moment
it had quite vanished in the mist, leaving behind it knots of swirling
water from its oar-blades.

Michael started in vain pursuit; his craft was heavy and clumsy, and
from the retreating and faint-growing sound of the other, it was clear
that he could get no pace to match, still less to overtake them. Soon he
pantingly desisted.

"But an Admiralty boat wouldn't have run away," he said. "They'd have
asked us who the devil we were."

"But who else was it?" asked Francis.

Michael mopped his forehead.

"Aunt Barbara would tell you," he said. "She would tell you that they
were German spies."

Francis laughed.

"Or Timbuctoo niggers," he remarked.

"And that would be an odd thing, too," said Michael.

But at that moment he felt the first chill of the shadow that
menaced, if by chance Aunt Barbara was right, and if already the clear
tranquillity of the sky was growing dim as with the mist that lay
that afternoon on the waters of the deep reach, and covered mysterious
movements which were going on below it. England and Germany--there was
so much of his life and his heart there. Music and song, and Sylvia.

CHAPTER X

Michael had heard the verdict of the brain specialist, who yesterday had
seen his mother, and was sitting in his room beside his unopened
piano quietly assimilating it, and, without making plans of his own
initiative, contemplating the forms into which the future was beginning
to fall, mapping itself out below him, outlining itself as when objects
in a room, as the light of morning steals in, take shape again. And even
as they take the familiar shapes, so already he felt that he had guessed
all this in that week down at Ashbridge, from which he had returned with
his father and mother a couple of days before.

She was suffering, without doubt, from some softening of the brain;
nothing of remedial nature could possibly be done to arrest or cure the
progress of the disease, and all that lay in human power was to secure
for her as much content and serenity as possible. In her present
condition there was no question of putting her under restraint, nor,
indeed, could she be certified by any doctor as insane. She would have
to have a trained attendant, she woul