“Me!” she answered innocently.  “Do you mean me? do you really?  I couldn’t think what you wanted to say, but that’s enough.  My dearest, dearest father!  Oh, how happy Robert will be! and so am I. We thought you didn’t care for me; and I know I am a poor, foolish girl, not half good enough for Robert; but I do love him, and I never loved anybody else; and I do love you.”

When she had left, Michael rose from his bed.  His faith remained unchanged, but it presented itself to him in a different shape.  A new and hitherto unnoticed article in his creed forced itself before him.  God’s hand—­for it was God’s hand—­had plucked him out of the sea and brought him back to life.  What did that mean?  Ah! what was he?—­a worm of the earth!  How dare he lift himself up against the Almighty’s designs?  The Almighty asked him the question eternally repeated to us, which He had asked thousands of years ago, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. . . .  Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings forward to the south?” “The hawk flies not by my wisdom,” murmured Michael to himself, “nor doth the eagle at my command make her nest on high.  Ah, it is by His wisdom and at His command; how should I dare to interfere?  I see it—­I see it all now.  ’I have uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.’” After his fashion and through his religion he had said to himself the last word which can be uttered by man.  He knelt down and prayed, and although he was much given to extempore prayer, he did not, in this his most intense moment, go beyond the prayer of our Lord, which, moreover, expressed what he wanted better than any words of his own. “Thy will,” he repeated, “Thy will.”  His one thought now was his son, but he knew not where to find him.  He went out and he saw his man, David Trevenna.

“He was off in a hurry; only just caught the coach,” said David.

“Who?  What coach?”

“Why, Robert; going to Plymouth.”

Michael did not answer, but hurried to his stable where his little pony was kept, and put him in the light cart.  He told his wife that he had some business in Plymouth with Robert, packed up a few things, took some money, and in a few minutes was on the Truro road.  At Truro he found the mail, and within twelve hours he was at Plymouth.  Dismounting, he asked eagerly if they had a young man at the inn who had come from Cornwall the day before.

“What, one as is waiting for the packet?”

“Yes,” said Michael at a venture.

“Yes, he’s here, but he isn’t in just now.  Gone out for a walk.”