The joy in the man's hard eyes was unmistakable, and Vita, witnessing it, understood that it was real, genuine. "Then listen," he cried. "Communication with your father will be simple and safe. We do not need his whereabouts. I will dictate a letter to you--a letter of our plans and instructions. We will beat Von Berger at his own game, and once we are in America we can snap our fingers at the whole race. I will tell you now Von Berger threatened me yesterday again. He it was who deprived me of my command at Borga. He it was who superseded me over here. He it is who has given me the life of a cur ever since. Now I shall pay him in a way he little suspects. I will dictate this letter for you, Vita, and when it is written you will address it to your father and enclose it under cover to Sir Andrew Farlow at Dorby Towers. He will see that it reaches your father. You will see how sure is my plan. No matter into whose hands that letter falls it cannot betray his whereabouts to any one." And Vita was finally convinced. She was making her sacrifice for the life and liberty of her father, and through all the pains and hopelessness of yielding up her love for Ruxton she had the wholly inadequate assurance that, whatever it cost her, it was her simple duty for which even Ruxton himself would never blame her. CHAPTER XXIII THE WRECK AT DORBY A small group of people stood surveying the wreck of one of the great construction docks in the Dorby yards. Prominent among them were Sir Andrew Farlow and his son. They were standing beside a naval officer of considerable rank. A number of naval uniforms stood out from the rest of the civilians; but these were of lesser degree. The sky was heavily overcast. A light, penetrating drizzle of rain was falling. Somehow these things seemed to add to the sense of destruction prevailing. The corrugated iron roof--thousands of square feet of it--was lying tumbled and torn upon a tangle of fallen steel girders. Great slabs of ferro-concrete walls loomed grey amidst the chaos. Steel stanchions of great height and strength, used to support the roofing, lay about, bent or broken, like so much lead piping. The mass of wreckage was stupendous, and through it all, and beyond it, towards the water's edge, the rigid steel ribs of twin vessels stood up defiantly, as though indifferent to the fierce upheaval which had wrecked their cradles. Ruxton pointed at the latter. "They've wrecked everything but what they set out to wreck." He had voiced a general thought. There was no answer to his comment. The naval commander displayed his feelings in the almost childlike regret in his eyes. The wrecking of anything in the shape of sea craft smote him to the heart. It was no question of values to him. The sea and all that belonged to it were the precious things of life to him. Sir Andrew frowned down upon the scene. His strong Yorkshire features were sternly set.