e
most real. It is, however, of such a nature that it can neither be
averted nor can it profitably be expressed in words. If all goes well,
you will see us at Branksome on the sixth.

"With our fondest love to both of you, I am ever, my dear friends, your
attached

"MORDAUNT."

This letter was a great relief to us as letting us know that the brother
and sister were under no physical restraint, but our powerlessness and
inability even to comprehend what the danger was which threatened those
whom we had come to love better than ourselves was little short of
maddening.

Fifty times a day we asked ourselves and asked each other from what
possible quarter this peril was to be expected, but the more we thought
of it the more hopeless did any solution appear.

In vain we combined our experiences and pieced together every word
which had fallen from the lips of any inmate of Cloomber which might be
supposed to bear directly or indirectly upon the subject.

At last, weary with fruitless speculation, we were fain to try to drive
the matter from our thoughts, consoling ourselves with the reflection
that in a few more days all restrictions would be removed, and we should
be able to learn from our friends' own lips.

Those few intervening days, however, would, we feared, be dreary, long
ones. And so they would have been, had it not been for a new and most
unexpected incident, which diverted our minds from our own troubles and
gave them something fresh with which to occupy themselves.

CHAPTER XI. OF THE CASTING AWAY OF THE BARQUE "BELINDA"

The third of October had broken auspiciously with a bright sun and a
cloudless sky. There had in the morning been a slight breeze, and a few
little white wreaths of vapour drifted here and there like the scattered
feathers of some gigantic bird, but, as the day wore on, such wind as
there was fell completely away, and the air became close and stagnant.

The sun blazed down with a degree of heat which was remarkable so late
in the season, and a shimmering haze lay upon the upland moors and
concealed the Irish mountains on the other side of the Channel.

The sea itself rose and fell in a long, heavy, oily roll, sweeping
slowly landward, and breaking sullenly with a dull, monotonous booming
upon the rock-girt shore. To the inexperienced all seemed calm and
peaceful, but to those who are accustomed to read Nature's warnings
there was a dark menace in air and sky and sea.

My sister