In the Homeric story, Thetis took her son Achilles by the heel and dipped him in the river Styx to make the boy invulnerable. The water covered him save where the heel was covered by his mother's hand. And it was through the heel, that one vulnerable spot, that ultimately death assailed the hero. So, also, it seemed to the reflective girl, the heel typified her heart. All the armour of life that she had taken to herself under the auspices of her father would not avail against the enemy who assailed her in that one weak spot.
There were times when she felt that she had discredited her training and fallen below her appointed level. There were other times when she felt instinctively convinced that in woman's weakness lay her truest strength—her greatest victory in her ordained defeat.
WARDLAW'S WORKS.
To counteract the dangers arising from the Channel Tunnel, long since an accomplished fact, and to soothe the apprehensions of a large section of the public, new defence works of enormous strength and intricacy had been constructed on the heights of Dover. Always a place of vast importance by reason of its position, the ancient stronghold now had become more notably than ever the key to England. As a watering place it had steadily dwindled in importance. Its neighbour, Folkestone, easily held the palm for all pleasure-seekers; but the commercial development of Dover as a port of call for the great liners had been remarkable, just as its strength for naval purposes had been vastly augmented. The completion of the Admiralty Harbour by the construction of the East Arm and the South Breakwater now afforded a safe haven for the largest warships in the British Navy. Here they might ride at anchor, or safely come and go, always protected by the monster guns which had been mounted in the various forts.
The commercial harbour had been provided with a huge marine station, where transatlantic passengers in ever-increasing numbers were enabled to land or embark under shelter, continuing their journey either on land or sea with a modicum of inconvenience. It was the great aim of competing steam and railway companies to simplify the methods of travel and enable everybody to go everywhere and do everything with the greatest possible amount of comfort. Those who could not trust themselves, invaluable as they were to themselves, amid the chops of the Channel, now might travel by tunnel to and from the Continent, and thus avoid the risks of nausea or the inconsiderate assaults of wind or wave.
By one means or another thousands upon thousands of passengers of all nations and tongues streamed through Dover year after year. It was before all things a place of passage—in so far as it was not a place of arms. If one had repeated to most of these globe-trotters Gloster's question in King Lear: "Dost thou know Dover?" the answer would probably have been: "Well, I just caught a glimpse of it." From the Channel, Shakespeare's Cliff, to the westward of the Admiralty pier, certainly was found less impressive than most people had expected. Like English life, as a whole, it seemed less spacious than it was considered to be in the days of good Queen Bess. But then, of course, Shakespeare, with his cloud-capp'd towers and gorgeous palaces, was always such a very imaginative dramatist. Still, there was the ancient, though slowly-crumbling, cliff remaining in evidence to remind English folk and foreigners of the splendid story of England's past. There, too, on Castle Hill, the ancient Roman Pharos—adjoining St. Mary's-in-Castro—reared its roofless walls towards the clouds. The mariners of England and of Gaul no longer needed the lights of the Pharos to guide them in the Channel, and, of course, the venerable bells that used to ring for matins and evensong were silent many a year before Admiral Rooke removed them to Portsmouth parish church.
The great Castle, close at hand, was visited by very few excursionists. The climb between Castle Hill and the Western heights was found fatiguing. More Americans than Englishmen appeared to interest themselves in the story of the Castle; its occupation by William of Normandy after the Battle of Hastings, its associations with King John's craven submission to the Papal Legate, its victorious defence by Hubert de Burgh, the French attack—fruitless again—of 1278, and other incidents of historic interest. The Long Gun, known as Queen Elizabeth's pocket-pistol, still pointed its muzzle sea-ward, and the inscription in low Dutch, very freely translated, rashly adjured the current generation to—