About&nbsp;a quarter of a century ago, under a bright May morning sun, the English Channel Squadron steamed into the harbour of the French town of Harbourg, with flags half-mast high. The Captain of one of the vessels had lost his young wife that morning.<br />Until the very hour of her death, the poor fellow had persisted in believing that she was getting better, that the weakness which had been growing for months on the fragile little lady, the paleness of her delicate cheeks, the feebleness of her sweet voice would pass away. And now they had indeed passed away&mdash;into waxen death, and the twenty-year-old wife lay peacefully in the little state cabin, while her husband, stunned by uncomprehending grief, stood beside her with her baby in his arms, not hearing its soft babble of inarticulate sounds, not seeing anything but that horrible, agonising, still image of the woman he had frantically loved.