"All depends upon the moon then. She'll hardly make us out against the shore. If the moon stays in for fifteen minutes we shall be out of range of her guns and we can outfoot her in a stern chase."
CHAPTER XXV
Home Again
Mrs. Hamilton sat on the broad veranda of her cottage looking wistfully out to sea. She was pale and languid from the weight of many anxious days and sleepless nights. Before her lay the treacherous ocean, now calm and peaceful, rippling laughingly in the summer sunshine. The white sails of tiny pleasure craft skimmed lightly over its placid surface, and in striking contrast to her unhappy mood, nature and the world seemed to show their cheeriest faces. The laughing voices of merry youngsters, the twitter of the sparrows in the trees, the soft notes of a girl's happy song wafted to her from a passing yacht, all grated harshly on her overwrought nerves. Day in and day out, in sunshine and storm, since Harry's disappearance, she had sat in a sheltered corner of the veranda and—waited.
Mr. Hamilton stepped out of the cottage, and drawing a chair beside her, took her hand gently in his and caressed it silently.
"There is no word yet?" she said, finally, without taking her eyes from the dancing water.
"And you have been unable to learn anything of the steamer,—the Mariella?"