“No, oh no,” she said.  Her voice was hoarse with fatigue, but was undaunted.  “I shall sail humbly in the wake of the Royal Navy.  Only, tell me what you mean to do.”

He stood for a moment under a lamp, and his keen eyes seemed to see through her.  “I propose to begin with the first street out of the Parade,” he said, “and so on, by sections.  I’ll go first where I’m known.  There can’t be such a rack of twins in the town that they can’t be traced.  Trust me, lady.”

“I do!  I do!” she said; “but I feel frightened.”

“Where’s your faith, ma’am?” he said, rather sternly.

“I am sure I don’t know,” she said, with a faint smile.  “It may be the will—­the will of—­Providence—­that the children should not come home.”

The old man stood still again, and raised his cap from a silvery head.

“There’s One above as won’t let him go too far,” he said.  “We have our orders, which is enough for me.  Carry on.”

And really faith or fortune did seem to befriend Mrs. Beauchamp at last.  It was just after they had knocked at the second closed door, and had received a very short negative to their inquiry, which the maidservant evidently considered to be an ill-timed joke, that a door on the opposite side of the road opened suddenly, and a great stream of light flashed out.

There were some confused farewells, a gathering up of skirts, and laughter; and in a minute the Royal Navy was standing at the salute before the master of the house.

“The lady and I are looking for some twins, sir.”

Instead of the ready “No” they half expected, the man paused, and smiled whimsically.

“Well, what have the little beggars been doing now?” he said.

Never had any words sounded quite so sweet to Mrs. Beauchamp.  She too came into the circle of light, and lifted her sweet, tired, beseeching face.

“My children were playing with the twins this evening,” she said, “and they have never come home.  Of course they may not be your twins; but we hope—­”

“Come in, come in,” he interrupted, holding the door hospitably open until it had swallowed them all up.  “Of course it is my twins.  No one else’s twins are ever half so troublesome.”

And then he sent a great, jovial shout up the stairs,—­

“Dot and Dash, you are wanted!”

CHAPTER XI.

Instantly there were a scuffle in the upper passage and a rush of bare feet to the top of the stairs.  Mrs. Beauchamp, looking up, saw two slim figures in white, and in another minute she was confronted by two pairs of the very brightest and most daring black eyes she had ever seen.

Without a moment’s hesitation Dot hurled herself against the slight figure in the hall, and began a confused, breathless, incoherent statement.  “I could not sleep.  Neither of we have slept all night.  Susie said she knew about the tides; she said she was quite certain”—­most familiar words in Mrs. Beauchamp’s ears—­“that she would get home all right.  But Dick had hurt his foot, and we left her on the rocks, sitting quite in a pool.  And it has rained so ever since; and perhaps she is on the rocks still, and it is pitchy dark, and both of we feel as if we couldn’t bear it.”