ld. He was
without a flaw. His nerves were perfectly steady. His will responded
to every demand. He had the faculty of making up his mind at the first
warning. His senses were always on the alert, but were controlled by
his reason. He had keen intelligence and a clear, logical mind. _He
was ready._

He was ready. Like an athlete at the top of his form, he owed it to
himself to enter the lists and accomplish some feat of prowess. Now,
by a wonderful coincidence, it seemed that events promised him a field
of action in which this feat of prowess might be performed in the most
brilliant fashion. How? That he did not know. When? That he could not
say. But he felt a profound intuition that new paths were about to
open up before him.

For an hour he walked to and fro, fired by enthusiasm, quivering with
hope. Suddenly a squall leapt at the sea-front, as though torn from
the crest of the waves; and the rain fell in disorderly masses,
hurtling downwards in all directions.

The storm had broken and Isabel was still at sea.

He shrugged his shoulders, refusing to admit a return of anxiety. If
they had both escaped from the wreck of the _Queen Mary_, it was not
in order that one of them should now pay for that unexpected boon. No,
come what might, Isabel would reach the other side. Fate was
protecting them both.

Through the torrents of rain pouring across the parade and by the
flooded streets, Simon returned to the Villa Dubosc. An indomitable
energy bore him up. And he thought with pride of his beautiful bride,
who, disdainful like himself of the day's accumulated ordeals and
untiring as he, had gone forth bravely into the terrors of the night.

CHAPTER IV

THE GREAT UPHEAVAL

The next five days were of those whose memory oppresses a nation for
countless generations. What with hurricanes, cyclones, floods, swollen
rivers and tidal waves, the coasts of the Channel and in particular
the parts about Fecamp, Dieppe and Le Treport suffered the most
infuriate assaults conceivable.

Although a scientist would not admit the least relation between this
series of storms and the tremendous event of the 4th of June, that is
to say, of the last of these five days, what a strange coincidence it
was! How could the masses ever since help thinking that these several
phenomena all formed part of one connected whole?

In Dieppe, the undoubted centre of the first seismic disturbances, in
Dieppe and the outlying districts hell w