gentleman had in the meantime
filled a small phial with the medicinal water, which he carefully placed
in his pocket; and on the King coming up they retired together and
disappeared. Thereupon Anne, now thoroughly aroused, followed the same
way with a gingerly tread, just in time to see them get into a carriage
which was in waiting at the turning of the lane.

She quite forgot the carrier, and everything else in connexion with
riding home. Flying along the road rapidly and unconsciously, when she
awoke to a sense of her whereabouts she was so near to Overcombe as to
make the carrier not worth waiting for. She had been borne up in this
hasty spurt at the end of a weary day by visions of Bob promoted to the
rank of admiral, or something equally wonderful, by the King's special
command, the chief result of the promotion being, in her arrangement of
the piece, that he would stay at home and go to sea no more. But she was
not a girl who indulged in extravagant fancies long, and before she
reached home she thought that the King had probably forgotten her by that
time, and her troubles, and her lover's name.

XXXV. A SAILOR ENTERS

The remaining fortnight of the month of September passed away, with a
general decline from the summer's excitements. The royal family left the
watering-place the first week in October, the German Legion with their
artillery about the same time. The dragoons still remained at the
barracks just out of the town, and John Loveday brought to Anne every
newspaper that he could lay hands on, especially such as contained any
fragment of shipping news. This threw them much together; and at these
times John was often awkward and confused, on account of the unwonted
stress of concealing his great love for her.

Her interests had grandly developed from the limits of Overcombe and the
town life hard by, to an extensiveness truly European. During the whole
month of October, however, not a single grain of information reached her,
or anybody else, concerning Nelson and his blockading squadron off Cadiz.
There were the customary bad jokes about Buonaparte, especially when it
was found that the whole French army had turned its back upon Boulogne
and set out for the Rhine. Then came accounts of his march through
Germany and into Austria; but not a word about the Victory.

At the beginning of autumn John brought news which fearfully depressed
her. The Austrian General Mack had capitulated with h