On which Miss Acton screamed out: "What did I say? Are not my words true? To think of our beloved Lucy imprisoned in a ship! Sailed away with, never to be seen more perhaps, in the hands of--of--oh, what is to be done? What is to be done?" The Admiral started from his chair to his feet. His face was full of blood, his hands were uplifted, and his fingers tightly locked. He cried, in a voice that was like mimic thunder in its power, and breaks, and falls: "I will hire a vessel and chase him; I will pursue him, though he should lead me to the very gates of Hell. Oh, my precious God! I, who have ever striven to act my part well in the service of my country! I, who have ever struggled to live an honourable and a stainless life as a gentleman and a sailor! Why am I dishonoured and degraded by the possession of such a son?" He unclasped his hands and buried his purple face, and stood rocking and reeling as though he were about to fall in a fit, and sobbed twice or thrice with that dreadful note of grief in his dry-eyed agony, which makes the fearlessness of manhood in suffering one of the most pitiful, painful and pathetic of spectacles. Captain Acton laid his hand on the Admiral's shoulder. "Bear up!" he said gently. "Presently we will discuss the matter calmly. God is good, and this blow may not prove nearly so heavy as we now think it." With kindly pressure he obliged the old seaman to resume his seat, and then turned with something of fierceness upon old Greyquill. "May I ask," said he, flourishing the letter, "how it is that you, sir, being fully admitted by the perusal of this document into the base plot Mr Lawrence was hatching, should have chosen to keep the intention to yourself, when by the revelation of this letter you could have put it out of Mr Lawrence's power to carry off my child." Mr Greyquill stood up. His eyes had a peculiar light in them, a faint flush was painted on each cheek, and seemed to make whiter yet the whiteness of his brows and his hair.