“I have not found them; I cannot trace them anyhow.  Can none of you help me?”

Her sweet, impatient voice appealed to them rather hopelessly, and there was no response.

“I’m willing to do what I can,” one of them said at last.  “At daylight I’ll bring round my boat and go over the rocks.  It’s an ebb tide.”

“Oh no,” she said, and shuddered.  “I can’t sit still till daylight—­indeed I cannot.  It is only ten o’clock now.”

“It’s a fair offer, lady,” said the man.

“But it is going to be a fine night,” she pleaded.  “The rain is over.  If I could find the twins of whom my children speak!  Can you not help me?  You are at least men.”

“Why, ma’am”—­it was a new voice that answered her—­“if it’s children you want, I’ll find them fast enough if they are on shore; it’s only the sea that keeps her own.  A set of lubberly men that can’t help a lady in distress!  That’s not how the Royal Navy acts.  And don’t you cry, lady.  Lads and lasses don’t get mislaid as easy as that; bad halfpennies come back to their moorings.  We’ll knock at every door in the town before we give up.”

He was an old man, but there was a very different note in his voice from the flabby sympathy of the other men.  He put out his pipe with a horny thumb, and gave a rather contemptuous look round the lounging group of longshoremen.  “Royal Navy” was written all over him—­in his keen eyes, his upright carriage, and his kindly, respectful manner.  At the confidence in his voice Mrs. Beauchamp’s wavering hope steadied, but she suddenly felt the strain of the anxiety and fatigue.  As she turned she stumbled over something small and black that the ebb-tide had left in the ridge of damp seaweed on the beach.  She slipped and recovered herself, for the old man’s hand was on her arm.

“Steady, ma’am,” he said cheerfully; “it’s only a bit of an old boot.”

“A bit of a boot!” The object swam before Mrs. Beauchamp’s eyes, her hands trembled.  “It is a child’s,” she said, and there was anguish in her voice.

“Oh, well”—­he picked it up and flung it on one side—­“the sea don’t give up boots without the feet they held.  Wherever the little girl is, ma’am, she’s gone without her boots.  Carry on.”

The Royal Navy, as the senior service, went first, and Mrs. Beauchamp stumbled after him; but there was new hope springing in her heart.  His sturdy common-sense had infected her.  Was it she only who doubted Susie—­who had no confidence in her common-sense?  The sea gives back only what it takes, and it had given back only Susie’s empty boot.

Stumbling, dizzy, tired out, she still felt a divine peace at her heart as she heard the comfortable, steady steps beside her, and saw the fine, weather-beaten face, with its clear, keen eyes.

“You see, ma’am,” he said, “longshoremen are good lads enough for sunshine and fair weather, but it’s the Royal Navy you look to when it comes to foul weather and storm.  That’s where I got my training, and it stands by you.  Maybe you’d like to rest a bit and let me go on?  I’ll knock at every door in the place before I give in, and I’ll bring them children with me.”