It was, she considered, an occasion for braving the doctor's interdict.
Gower was presently summoned to the chamber where Admiral Fakenham reclined on cushions in an edifice of an arm-chair.

He told a plain tale.

Its effect was to straighten the admiral's back, and enlarge in grey glass a pair of sea-blue eyes.

And, 'What's that?
Whitechapel ?' the admiral exclaimed,--at high pitch, far above his understanding.
The particulars were repeated, whereupon the sick-room shook with, 'Greengrocer ?' He stunned himself with another of the monstrous points in his pet girl's honeymoon: 'A prizefight ?' To refresh a saving incredulity, he took a closer view of the messenger.
Gower's habiliments were those of the 'queer fish,' the admiral saw.
But the meeting at Carlsruhe was recalled to him, and there was a worthy effort to remember it.

'Prize-fight!--Greengrocer! Whitechapel!' he rang the changes rather more moderately; till, swelling and purpling, he cried: 'Where's the husband ?' That was the emissary's question likewise.
'If I could have found him, sir, I should not have troubled you.' 'Disappeared?
Plays the man of his word, then plays the madman! Prize-fight the first day of her honeymoon?
Good Lord! Leaves her at the inn ?' 'She was left.' 'When was she left ?' 'As soon as the fight was over--as far as I understand.' The admiral showered briny masculine comments on that bridegroom.
'Her brother's travelling somewhere in the Pyrenees--married my daughter.