"I think so, Kate," replied Sanford in an equally serious voice. "We laid one yesterday before the easterly gale caught us. You got my telegram, didn't you?"
"Of course! but I was anxious for all that. Ever since I had that talk with General Barton I've felt nervous over the laying of those stones. He frightened me when he said no one of the Board at Washington believed you could do it. It would be so awful if your plan should fail."
"But it's not going to fail, Kate. I can do it, and will." There was a decided tone in his voice, and his eyebrows were knitted in the way she loved: she read his determination in every word and look. "All I wanted was a proper boat, and I've got that. I watched her day before yesterday. I was a little nervous until I saw her lower the first stone. Her captain is a plucky fellow,--Captain Joe likes him immensely. I wish you could have been there to see how cool he was,--not a bit flustered when he saw the rocks under the bow of his sloop."
Kate handed him her empty coffee-cup, and going to the edge of the balcony rested her elbows on the railing, a favorite gesture of hers, and looked down on the treetops of the square.
"Caleb West, of course, went down with the first stone, didn't he?" she asked when he joined her again. She knew Caleb's name as she did those of all the men in Sanford's employ. There was no detail of the work he had not explained to her.
"And was the sea-bottom as you expected to find it?" she added.
"Even better," he answered, eager to discuss his plans with her. "Caleb reports that as soon as he gets the first row of enrockment stones set, the others will lie up like bricks. And it's all coming out exactly as we have planned it, too, Kate."
He went over with her again, as he had done so many times before, all of his plans for carrying on the work and the difficulties that had threatened him. He talked of his hopes and fears, of his confidence in his men, his admiration for them, and his love for the work itself. To Sanford, as to many men, there were times when the sympathy and understanding of a woman, the generous faith and ready belief of one who listens only to encourage, became a necessity. To have talked to a man as he did to Kate would not only have bored his listener, but might have aroused a suspicion of his own professional ability.