"Don't trouble about me. Be anxious if you will, but let that anxiety be for the woman I love, and whom I hope even after this to present to you as your daughter. If she is safe, then--for me nothing else matters. I have done all that is humanly possible, at least which is possible to me. The rest is in the lap of the gods. Wish me luck, Dad, and good-bye." He held out his hand. In a moment it was enveloped in both of his father's. "With all my heart, lad. Good-bye. You will win out, I'm sure." Then he turned again to his dressing-table and picked up his hair-brushes. He attacked his crisply curling white hair with almost unnecessary violence while his eyes watched the retreating figure of his only son in the reflection of the mirror. Sunday dawned with a clouded, watery sky. All the morning the threat of rain held. Then, at lunch-time, a wind sprang out of the northeast, and the atmosphere grew dry and crisp, and the clouds lightened. The grey North Sea changed its hue to a lighter green, and at long intervals whitecaps broke up the oily aspect. The breeze had freshened by three o'clock and a chill swept over the moorlands, and the feel and aspect of winter settled upon the dull-tinted landscape. As evening began to close in the breeze dropped, and with it fell the temperature. Two figures paced the winding footpath at the edge of the cliffs. Both were clad in heavy civilian ulsters, and their coat-collars sheltered the lower portions of their clean-shaven faces. In their shaded eyes was that far-off gaze which is only to be found in the eyes of men of the sea. It is an expression which must ever betray the man who belongs to the sea the moment he approaches that element, which is at once his friend and his bitterest foe. Sir Reginald Steele paused and pointed out at the already darkening horizon. "What a target," he cried. "Look at her, with her absurdly proud and vaunting four funnels. Look at the great upstanding chest like some vain pouter-pigeon. Man, give me an armored submarine, with a brace of heavy guns on it, and wirelessly controlled torpedoes, and I'd--sink her cold. I'd sink her before she got my range. I'd sink her while she fumbled amongst her cumbersome armaments." He laughed the merry laugh of a man who wishes to probe the open wound of disagreement between two close friends. "You're welcome to the submarine, Reggie. I'll take the 'pouter' every time. I'll give you a dozen shots with your wireless controlled as a start, and your pop-guns can amuse themselves indefinitely. She's a handsome craft. Town class, isn't she? She'd make you hate it in spite of your steel-clad hide."