“I’m glad to pay it, John, if it makes for your happiness.” John could hear her saying that. It gave him pause. This preliminary cost of freedom it would, however, be possible, though inconvenient, to pay. Beyond it lay a problem not easily soluble--perhaps impossible to solve. By leaving the Service he would cut himself off from the only profession for which his specialized training had fitted him. He would have to be educated again, apprenticed again. At a time when he might have been earning enough money for his own support more money would have to be invested in his career. It was probable that, for all his mother’s good-will, the money could not be produced. The meshes of the net were close and strong. So John fought to reverse his decision and succeeded at least in postponing the letter by which his mother should be made aware of it. Delay was easy, almost pleasant; for he dreaded above all else the answer, which despite his hopes he felt was inevitable, that her financial position made his second apprenticeship, and therefore his withdrawal, impracticable. Such an answer would shatter in a moment the dreams by which he now lived. Until it came hope would endure; by its arrival hope would be definitely banished. He dared not think of his life after that. He must leave the Service soon or not at all, for every year would make a fresh start more difficult. If he was forced to realize that he could not be withdrawn as a midshipman it would be made plain to him--so plain that he would not be able to deceive himself--that he must be a naval officer so long as he lived. His visions of Oxford, of the House, of miraculous literary success, extravagant though he knew them to be, were yet based upon possibility. This possibility once removed, as it would be by his mother’s negative, the visions themselves must perish and their consolation pass away. Not till August was nearly over did the time come when action could no longer be delayed. An incident entirely unconnected with John’s desire to leave the Service impelled him to write the letter in which his desire was expressed. The squadron had been carrying out Commander-in-Chief’s firing. It had fallen to an elevation party from the _Pathshire_ to board the tug which towed the target, and to spot the fall of the flagship’s shot. John and Cunwell had gone with Ordith. It was their duty to sit aft in the tug so that they were in line with the target, and to record by means of a stop-watch and the Rake instrument the time and effect of each salvo. Ordith was to observe, calling to John, who would write them down, the errors over or short in yards. Cunwell was to keep his eyes on the flagship, and, as the guns flashed, say “Fire,” John pressing the knob of the stop-watch and entering the time on his sheet.