As the Caledonia, continually increasing her speed, made her way through the outer harbour, Heideck saw some twenty men-of-war in the roadstead, including several large ironclads.  English troops from Malta were being landed in boats from two transports, the decks of which glistened with arms.

The Caledonia proceeded with increasing rapidity into the open sea.  The city and its lighthouses disappeared in the distance, the blue mountains of the mainland and of the island were lost in a floating mist.  A long, glittering, white furrow followed in the wake of the steamer.

It was a wonderful journey for all whom a load of anxiety had not rendered insensible to the grandeur of Nature.  Heideck, happy at being at last on the way home, enjoyed the beauty of sea and sky to the full.  The uneasy doubts which sometimes assailed him as to his own and Edith’s future were suppressed by the charm of her presence.  Her impetuosity caused him perpetual anxiety, but he loved her.  Ever since she had declared that she would never leave him she had been all devotion and tenderness, as if tormented by a constant fear that he might nevertheless one day cast her off.

So they sat once again, side by side, on the promenade deck.  The azure billows of the sea splashed round the planks of the vessel.  The boundless surface of ocean glittered with a marvellous brilliancy, and everything seemed bathed in a flood of light.  The double awning over the heads of the young couple kept off the burning heat of the sun, and a refreshing breeze swept across the deck beneath it.

“Then you would land with me at Brindisi?” asked Heideck.

“At Brindisi, or Aden, or Port Said—­where you like.”

“I think Brindisi will be the most suitable place.  Then we can travel together to Berlin.”

Edith nodded assent.

“But I don’t know how long I shall stay in Berlin,” continued Heideck.  “I hope I shan’t be sent to join my regiment at once.”

“If you are I shall go with you, wherever it may be,” she said as quietly as if it were a matter of course.

“That would hardly be possible,” he rejoined, with a smile.  “We Germans make war without women.”

“And yet I shall go with you.”

Heideck looked at her in amazement.  “But don’t you understand, dear, that it would be something entirely novel, and bound to create a sensation, for a German officer to take the field with his betrothed?”

“I am not afraid of what people think.  I don’t care what the Kennedys may say if I leave the ship at Brindisi and go with you.  Of course it will be a sad downfall for me.  They would look on me as a lost woman from that moment.  But I care nothing about that.  I have long been cured of the foolish idea that we must sacrifice our happiness to what the world may say.”

Of course Heideck refused to take her words seriously.  He did not believe she meant to accompany him to the field, and seized the opportunity of making a proposal which he had already carefully considered.