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 e Auditing
Fundamentals
Virtual
Communication
and Remote
Auditing

J.P. Russell
and Shauna Wilson

H1437 Russell PG FrontBack.indd 1 12/18/12 10:12 AM

 eAuditing
Fundamentals
Also available from ASQ Quality Press:

The ASQ Auditing Handbook, Fourth Edition

J.P. Russell, editor

The Process Auditing and Techniques Guide,

Second Edition
J.P. Russell

ISO Lesson Guide 2008: Pocket Guide to ISO

9001-2008, Third Edition
Dennis R. Arter and J.P. Russell

Quality Audits for Improved Performance, Third Edition

Dennis R. Arter

The Internal Auditing Pocket Guide: Preparing,

Performing, Reporting, and Follow-Up, Second Edition
J.P. Russell

Auditing Beyond Compliance: Using the Portable

Universal Quality Lean Audit Model
Janet Bautista Smith

Process Driven Comprehensive Auditing: A New Way to

Conduct ISO 9001:2008 Internal Audits, Second Edition
Paul C. Palmes

AS9101D Auditing for Process Performance:

Combining Conformance and Effectiveness to
Meet Customer Satisfaction
Chad Kymal

To request a complimentary catalog of ASQ Quality

Press publications, call 800-248-1946, or visit our
Website at http://www.asq.org/quality-press.
 eAuditing
Fundamentals
Virtual Communication and
Remote Auditing

J.P. Russell
Shauna Wilson

ASQ Quality Press

Milwaukee, Wisconsin
American Society for Quality, Quality Press, Milwaukee 53203
© 2013 by J.P. Russell
All rights reserved. Published 2013
Printed in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Russell, J. P. (James P.), 1945-
Eauditing fundamentals : virtual communication and remote auditing /
J.P. Russell, Shauna Wilson.
  p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-87389-848-5 (pocket guide, soft cover : alk. paper)
1. Auditing—Data processing. I. Wilson, Shauna, 1959- II. Title.
HF5667.12.R87 2013
657'.45—dc23 2012044336

ISBN: 978-0-87389-848-5
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Printed on acid-free paper

 Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Chapter 1 Introduction to the eAuditing
Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2 Virtual Communications:
Theory and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter 3 Technology—Interview and
Record Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Chapter 4 Technology—Visual Tools . . . . . . . . 73
Chapter 5 Audit Models to Consider . . . . . . . . 101
Chapter 6 Validation Challenges and
eAudit Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Appendix A Technology—Visual Tools
(Illustration) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Appendix B ISO Discussion Forum Dialog . . . . 143
Appendix C eAudit Program Management
10-Point Implementation Checklist . . . . . . . 151

v
vi Table of Contents

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
 List of Figures and Tables

Table 1.1 Virtual workforce. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Table 1.2 What eAuditing is and is not. . . . . . 5
Figure 1.1 Potential travel expenses and
lost income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Figure 1.2 Key events leading to global
trade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Figure 1.3 Technological advances since
the 1970s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Figure 1.4 Communications may change
or disappear when transitioning to a
virtual office. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Figure 2.1 The communication process. . . . . . 25
Figure 2.2 The three stages to building
trust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Figure 2.3 Steps in the appreciative
inquiry method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

vii
viii List of Figures and Tables

Figure 2.4 Flowchart of sequential

questioning format. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Figure 2.5 The two dominant
communication methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Figure 2.6 Communication media and
types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Figure 3.1 Example of virtual meeting room
menu bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Table 3.1 Collaborative meeting tools for
use in eAuditing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Figure 3.2 Virtual meeting room opening
meeting screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Figure 3.3 Virtual opening meeting
process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Figure 3.4 Online meeting sign-in sheet. . . . . 56
Figure 3.5 Virtual meeting software
collaborative tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Figure 3.6 Changing presentation
permissions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Figure 3.7 eAuditing process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Figure 3.8 Virtual whiteboard example. . . . . 61
Table 3.2 Pros and cons of using e-mail
for record keeping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Figure 3.9 Internet office portal example. . . 64
Table 3.3 Common features and uses
of online offices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
 List of Figures and Tables ix

Table 3.4 Summary of report issues

and concerns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Figure 4.1 Three components necessary
for successful remote viewing. . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Table 4.1 Visual tools comparison matrix. . . . 77
Figure 4.2 Laptop/tablet with inward-
and outward-facing cameras. . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Figure 4.3 Download times at various
internet speeds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Figure 4.4 Collaborative room layout
example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Figure 4.5 Your sound test meeting
checklist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Figure 4.6 Video whiteboard example
from a drying area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Figure 4.7 Panoramic operational review
technique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Figure 4.8 Side-step operational review
technique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Figure 4.9 Station detail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Figure 5.1 Remote workforce distribution
example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Table 5.1 Strengths and weaknesses of
face-to-face audit model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Table 5.2 Strengths and weaknesses
of eAudits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
x List of Figures and Tables

Figure 5.2 Hybrid audit model example. . . . . 108

Table 5.3 Strengths and weaknesses of
hybrid audit model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Figure 5.3 eAuditing process model. . . . . . . . 113
Figure 5.4 eAuditing process steps. . . . . . . . . 115
Figure A.1 Panoramic operational review
technique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Figure A.2 Process flow view side-step
approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Figure A.3 Station detail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
 Preface

T
he purpose of this book is to provide hands-
on guidelines for using electronic communi-
cation tools as part of the auditing process.
The pros and cons of conducting e-audits and
their consequences will be reviewed. There are
situations when e-auditing techniques are more
efficient, and other times they may be less effi-
cient and even lead to questionable audit report
conclusions. In this book we provide proven tech-
niques for conducting remote audits (eAudits)
and explore eAuditing practices to help organi-
zations make informed decisions regarding their
use. Combined, the two authors have over 20
years’ experience conducting remote audits and
using virtual communication technologies.

xi
 1
Introduction to the
eAuditing Process

I
dentify environmental driving forces, issues,
and important terms related to our virtual
world:
• Characterize the virtual environment,
telecommuter workforce, and remote
auditing
• Review environmental driving forces
• Identify current challenges while working
remotely
• Identify fundamental components to be
successful

Virtual Organization and

the Telecommuter
A virtual organization employs a workforce that
conducts business across time zones, geographic

1
2 Chapter One

borders, and cultures. Another dimension of a

virtual organization is that it can include part-
nerships with other companies, even competi-
tors, for purchasing OEM parts or for contracting
business functions like human resources or
internal auditing from subject matter experts.
Virtual organizations can be ongoing or only
temporary. Temporary virtual organizations
may disband when the project is complete, like
a rock and roll concert tour or an election staff.
Companies, however, now depend on the flexibil-
ity, increased productivity, and agility virtual
organizations offer, along with a reduction in
absenteeism, overhead and travel expenses, and
improved morale. It’s looking like virtual organi-
zations are here to stay.
A statistic from The Week magazine indicates
that in 2011, a growing one-third of U.S.-based
companies employed 72 million telecom­muters.
Another statistic (www.teleworkresearchnetwork
.com) worth mentioning is that 40% of the work-
force does jobs that could be done from home.
This reflects the growth of the virtual working
environment. A telecommuter conducts work
from a home, a telework center, or another loca-
tion other than the main office. When auditing
different companies, you will find that each has
its own telecommuter description, but Table 1.1
shows a few telecommuter types with associated
descriptions from the Hudson Institute Center
for Workforce Development.
 Introduction to the eAuditing Process 3

Table 1.1 Virtual workforce.

Type of virtual worker Description
Home telecommuter Part-time one or two days
per week or full-time
Telecenter/satellite office Part-time one or two days
telecommuter per week in a remote facility
or full-time
Virtual office worker No office assigned
Long-distance Home worker in a distant
telecommuter city or state
Mobile professionals May have office, but often on
the road
Independent home worker Self-employed, contract
workers, lone eagles
Remote field worker Full-time in the field, usually
in a defined region
Decentralized work People in the same group but
groups in many locations
Remote branch office Entire work group in a remote
worker location

eAuditing—Auditing
Remotely
When you start talking about remote auditing—
or eAudits—with a group of auditors, you will
hear plenty of strong opinions. Some auditors are
4 Chapter One

­ ehemently opposed to the practice, while others

v
are open to the idea (J.P. Russell, “­Auditing in
Virtual Environments,” Quality Progress, Jan-
uary 2011). The obvious benefit of eAuditing is
more efficient use of resources. eAuditing tech-
niques can save auditor travel time and expenses,
while improving efficiency (J.P. Russell, “Audit-
ing in Virtual Environments”). When doing
­eAudits, practitioners have said they understand
the business systems better than when conduct-
ing face-to-face audits, especially when the on-
site audit involves being taken to a conference
room to review binder after binder of procedures
and records.
Generally, eAuditing has the potential to
assist in many ways, such as helping companies
to solve their online communication issues. If
communication issues stem from limited train-
ing for remote workers, an eAudit would have
exposed this gap. Another benefit of eAudits
could result from replicating the new emerging
online workforce’s environment. Auditors would
become more familiar with how to communicate
virtually to better understand the communica-
tion issues affecting these online management
systems. eAuditing could help to streamline and
maintain websites, documentation, and record
control in the online environment through sched-
uled reviews. Last but not least, eAuditing is a
socially responsible alternative by reducing the
consumption of energy and other resources.
 Introduction to the eAuditing Process 5

Is/Is Not
Understanding what eAuditing is and is not (see
Table 1.2) will help you understand more about
this emerging auditing technique. Most people
really don’t know what to expect.

Table 1.2 What eAuditing is and is not.

Is Is not
• Uses the same audit process • A desk audit in which
steps: the auditee sends
– Prepare all records and
procedures to an
– Perform auditor to review
– Report in isolation.
– Follow up • An unattended
auditor reviewing
• Simultaneous: a company’s
– An auditor interviews the computer files.
auditee in real time. • An electronic survey
– An auditor uses a computer, or checklist of
the internet, and cameras to questions to answer.
view records and processes • Records e-mailed to
at the location. an auditor to review
• Includes system assessments at a later date.
such as record control and
procedure and process review.
• The auditee has control of
their online record system
throughout the audit.
6 Chapter One

Driving Forces
Within the past 12 years, we have all changed
work habits due to three major events: 9/11 per-
manently impacted the economics of travel; the
international marketplace changed our business
relations; and technology continues to change
the way we communicate.

Economic Impact
Travel is very expensive both in lost billable
time and unavoidable travel expenses. For some,
it takes a minimum of six hours to travel, not
including the flying time, because they live two
hours from a major airport. Labor and lost income
are hidden productivity costs, and in many cases
are the larger costs.
Figure 1.1 shows a list of potential expenses
and lost income. Can you think of other losses for
your situation?
After allowing for travel to and from a loca-
tion, you could calculate 12 lost billable hours at
an inclusive rate (hourly plus overhead) of $100
an hour, which totals $1200, or one audit day
of possible income. After calculating the added
expenses of at least $600 per day, it quickly totals
$1800 for a day of travel. If an auditor spends
half or more of their time traveling by plane or on
the road, eAuditing offers a savings of half a year
in labor plus associated travel expenses.
 Introduction to the eAuditing Process 7

Lost income Expenses

❏ Movement to airport— ❏ $300 airfare (two-hour
1 hour flight)
❏ Wait at airport— ❏ $125 hotel
2 hours
❏ $125 rental car
❏ Flying time—1 hour ❏ $50 food
❏ Movement to rental
car—1 hour
❏ Movement to client
site—1 hour

Figure 1.1 Potential travel expenses and lost

income.

Other economic impacts include the imme-

diate access to remote locations eAuditing pro-
vides. On an as-needed basis, eAuditing can be
used in supplier audits. Auditors are also able to
audit longer because the report writing is greatly
reduced when an auditor is able to keyboard and
record audit trails simultaneously.

International Marketplace
In the last 85 years, the television set has been
one of the key drivers of globalization. Rather
than having TV manufacturers, TV parts are
developed and standardized by original equip-
ment manufacturers (OEMs) and then shipped
to a contract manufacturer, where the TV is
8 Chapter One

­assembled and shipped to retailers. As compa-

nies move to lower-cost countries, the price of TV
sets falls. The trick is no longer who produces the
best TV, but which company is able to create an
effective and efficient global supply chain. The
global marketplace has made virtual communi-
cation a way of life for many companies, which is
changing the way auditors need to do their jobs.

Auditors may have more time

to audit during eAudits because
report-writing time may be reduced.

Global trade is not a new phenomenon. In

fact, it dates back to 1450, providing countries
access to raw materials and manufactured prod-
ucts (Vale Center for the Study of Globalization).
­Figure 1.2 identifies key events leading us to
global trade.
The International Organization for Standard-
ization (ISO) is the world’s largest standards-­
developing organization. Since 1947, ISO has
generated more than 19,000 standards. ISO
has published four standards that are useful to
­reference when conducting eAudits: ISO 9001 for
quality systems, ISO 27001 for information secu-
rity management, ISO 31001 for risk manage-
ment, and ISO 26000 for social ­responsibility.
 Trade/conquest

Trade, conquest, New ideas create new markets

religion and
adventure lead to Civil war prompts A small world emerges when technology
the development creation of canned advances
of new markets. goods. 63,000 corporations—
Collapsed distances
Ford needs rubber and lowered transport globalize
for tires for its costs Trade agreements
Model T car. Steam engine/ship (GATT, WTO, NAFTA)
Malaysia supplies Airplane Offshore locations
rubber. Telegraph/telephone reduce manufacturing
Radio costs, shifting jobs
Television across borders
Satellite
Internet Billions of consumers
and tourists

Figure 1.2 Key events leading to global trade.

Introduction to the eAuditing Process 9
10 Chapter One

These standards provide good advice for audit-

ing global supply chains. Governments such as
the United States are deferring to the use of
international standards when they are available
instead of maintaining a national standard that
addresses the same subject.

Technology
Beginning in the early 1970s, technology has
advanced much more quickly than most of the
working population is able to keep pace with. In
2001, collaborative programs were very expen-
sive and exclusive compared to the solutions we
have today. Affordable collaborative solutions
now work on most mobile devices, like an iPad or
smartphone, and are available for small to large
businesses (see Figure 1.3). Mobile device cam-
eras make it very easy to see processes at remote
locations.
In the past, machines served us, but the new
technology of today is more like a partner. Inter-
facing with new technology takes some adjust-
ment on our part, and not everyone wants to do
that.
Many auditors, especially certification/
registration auditors who have missed out on the
technical advancements in working virtually,
will be hesitant about the notion of ­eAuditing.
Many tried but failed to conduct an online audit
satisfactorily. Their stories not only tell of issues
 Introduction to the eAuditing Process 11

2012 Collaborative
meeting rooms
Video on iPhones

2006 Skype adds video

2003 VoIP (Skype)

2001 Virtual offices (SharePoint)

1991–1996 AOL/Hotmail released

1990 World Wide Web invented

1971 e-mail invented

Figure 1.3 Technological advances since the 1970s.

12 Chapter One

with technology, but also of their frustration

about how to engage with the unseen people at
the other end of the phone line. Plus, our new
technology partner does not always work when
we want it to and has its own lingo that we must
learn.

Challenges
In our daily activities, we frequently work with
strangers, even trusting them with our lives each
time we drive our car, step on a plane, or get on
a bus. We discuss important life issues such as
finances, insurance, and medical assistance over
the phone with people we don’t know. People even
fall in love over the internet. So, why is it so hard
for us to adapt to working with people virtually?
It’s hardly surprising that some virtual teams
are not successful. And even if they are success-
ful, many virtual team members express a pref-
erence for working face to face. However, there
are many face-to-face teams that are not suc-
cessful either. The reality is that virtual teams
are new, and it may take some time to learn and
adjust to the new environment and technology.
Common concerns about virtual teams
include lack of facial and body language cues
for validation, feeling isolated, and a demand
for higher individual accountability because
delays resulting from lack of preparedness are
 Introduction to the eAuditing Process 13

e­ xacerbated and recovery takes longer (Shauna

­Wilson, “Forming Virtual Teams,” Quality Prog-
ress, June 2003).
There is also the issue of whether people are
visual or kinetic learners. Most consider them-
selves one or the other, leaving a small number
who admit to being audio learners. The challenge
of eAuditing for visual and kinetic learners is the
disappearance of seeing other people in the flesh.
Many of us rely on nonverbal communica-
tion for feedback and interpretation of what

Common concerns about virtual teams

include:
• Lack of facial and body language
cues for validation
• Fear of isolation
• Change in how we operate
• Demand for higher individual
accountability because delays
resulting from lack of preparedness
are exacerbated and recovery
takes longer.
Shauna Wilson
“Forming Virtual Teams,” Quality
­Progress, June 2003
14 Chapter One

was said, and if what was said is true. Nonver-

bal communication can provide informal verifi-
cation or an affirmation. We as a society are so
tied and grounded in nonverbal communication
that it has been said 93% of any communication
depends on the nonverbal, not the verbal. Virtual
environments limit this visual cue. However,
nonverbal communication is subjective input and
very judgmental. Some people point out that they
are listened to better in a virtual environment
than face to face because of their physical chal-
lenges or distractions. The virtual environment
promotes auditing techniques that verify what is
really going on rather than interpret nonverbal
communication. Perceptions are important, but
many times we are fooled by them.

Nonverbal communication
is subjective.

We use a variety of communication methods

in our daily routine, such as sticky notes, action
item lists, a wall calendar filled with events,
and recognition awards collected from training.
Though this communication is in passive mes-
sage form, it is valued as a reminder of infor-
mation, action, or recognition. The new virtual
office can remove many of these traditional meth-
ods for organizing communication. In Figure 1.4,
 Introduction to the eAuditing Process 15

find ­examples of communication that will either

change or ­disappear after transitioning from an
active traditional office to a virtual one.
When teams go virtual, e-mail or chat are
heavily relied-on communication tools. On aver-
age, people receive 100 e-mails daily.

Figure 1.4 Communications may change or

­disappear when transitioning to a
virtual office.
16 Chapter One

Companies that do use a virtual office soft-

ware program can also use it as a space for file
storage and for messaging others in the virtual
office.
Meeting frequencies can change, such as mov-
ing traditional daily face-to-face meetings to
weekly virtual meetings because of time zone
differences.
Virtual organizations must be prepared to
make accommodations for the real differences
between meeting online and face to face. Three
important foundational components help virtual
organizations be successful: cooperation, infra-
structure, and technology.

Cooperation, Infrastructure,
and Technology

Working in a virtual team is a lot like driving a car.

 Introduction to the eAuditing Process 17

Cooperation
We trust that other drivers on the roads we share
are trained, healthy enough to drive, and are not
intoxicated, high on drugs, texting, or incapable
of operating their vehicle. With a common goal
that all successfully reach our destinations, we
cooperate with one another by letting others into
our lane, keeping a safe distance behind the per-
son in front of us, and obeying the laws of the
road. The same could be said for virtual team
members who forgive misunderstandings, proof-
read e-mails for how the message could be misin-
terpreted, or call someone to talk about process
issues when needed. We cooperate and commu-
nicate with one another to reach common busi-
ness goals and objectives. In the virtual world we
can not physically force someone to cooperate or
comply with agreed arrangements. In this book
we will learn communication theories and solu-
tions that help our communication while audit-
ing online.

Virtual team members forgive

misunderstandings, proofread e-mails
for potential misinterpretation, and
are willing to call someone when
one-on-one voice communication is
needed to resolve process issues.
18 Chapter One

Infrastructure
The road system’s standards and regulations
save lives. If we stop and think about all the cars
and trucks that travel our interstate highways,
freeways, and other roads, it is the infrastruc-
ture, including speed limits, signage, training,
and certification—supported by enforcement—
that ensures this road system continues to hum.
A virtual organization should pay no less atten-
tion to infrastructure to ensure its success. A vir-
tual organization’s internal audit process using
eAuditing methods is an excellent means to
gauge performance.
In this book we will define audit models and
processes that replicate the working environ-
ment, meet an immediate need, and support the
audit process.

Technology
Automotive systems can now warn you if there
is something in front of, in back of, or beside you;
reader boards are able to provide estimated time
of arrival in bumper-to-bumper traffic; and the
list of technology advances rolls on. Our new
road map as auditors is to keep up with the tech-
nological changes, both on the roads and from
our home offices. A challenge for virtual orga-
nizations is selecting technology that enhances
 Introduction to the eAuditing Process 19

communication and can interrelate to the rela-

tionship level of the remote members globally.
In this book we will learn how to use collab-
orative technology to conduct online interviews
and use cameras for visual assistance.

Chapter Review

• Telecommuters can experience the

following issues when working in a
virtual organization:
A. Delays in decision making
B. Feelings of isolation
C. Difficulty with building trust
D. Challenge of validating without
verbal communication
• An eAudit uses the same audit process:
A. Prepare
B. Perform
C. Report
D. Follow up
• The changes in the world that have
significantly altered the way we conduct
20 Chapter One

audits include economics, global

marketplace, and technology.
• An advantage of eAuditing is that it
replicates the new global work
environment; thus, the auditor is
experiencing a similar virtual work
environment to that of the auditee.
Other advantages of eAuditing include:
A. Saves up to one-half of a year’s
auditing time
B. Provides real-time auditing,
especially for supplier audits
C. Minimized delay due to travel
D. Reduces the time to write audit
reports because auditors are
recording as they audit
• Among the reasons for negativity about
virtual teams are:
A. Lack of facial and body language
cues for validation
B. Fear of isolation
C. Change in how we operate
D. Demand for higher individual
accountability because delays
resulting from lack of preparedness
 Introduction to the eAuditing Process 21

are exacerbated, and recovery

takes longer
• The disappearance of the office
impacts passive communication. Passive
communication includes wall calendars
that note events, action item lists, and
contact lists; all provide reminder
information to the office personnel.
• A lot like the transportation system,
virtual teams need cooperation from the
workforce, a solid infrastructure, and
current technology to be successful.
 2
Virtual Communications:
Theory and Practice

U
nderstand communication methods used
in the virtual setting and how to use
these methods to build trust, interview,
and ensure validation.
1. Learn applicable communication models
and theories for auditing online.
2. Review important trust-building
communication processes.
3. Apply the appropriate technology to the
correct type of communication.

Communication Models
and Theories
Communication Challenges
A problem occurs when people use traditional
meeting methods in the online meeting envi-
ronment. Using the internet can make remote
23
24 Chapter Two

c­ommunication much different and more diffi-

cult to understand when compared to members
occupying the same room. Even knowing when
to start talking can be an issue for remote meet-
ings or interviews.
When communicating over the internet,
interference noise can stem from the technol-
ogy used (bandwidth issues, compatible software
and hardware) and limited or lack of nonverbal
communication. This inability to observe natu-
ral reactions may cause uncertainty and anxiety
in some people. For others, the virtual environ-
ment may result in less tension (no one watching
them), and they may share things they would not
if the meeting were face to face.
The communication process begins with a
sender initiating a message to a receiver. Then,
receivers decode the purpose of the message, try
to understand the message, separate the noise
that may exist, and then interpret the message.
Receivers will provide feedback to the source,
asking for clarification of the message, clarifi-
cation of their interpretation, or stating techni-
cal issues (see Figure 2.1). Having said this, we
know that not all messages are the same. Mes-
sages may allow limited feedback, or perhaps
assumed or one-way communication. Some only
require acknowledgment, while others require
verification that the message was received and
understood.
 Feedback Noise Feedback
• Uncertainty—Nonverbal
communication
• Anxiety—Due to the audit

Message Message

Encoder: Purpose Decoder: Translate

in mind the purpose into
a message

Source The Channel—Internet Receiver

Limited feedback including:
• One-way communication
• Only receipt required

figure 2.1 The communication process.

Virtual Communications: Theory and Practice 25

Source: Modified from the Shannon Weaver model.

26 Chapter Two

Two communication theories, uncertainty

reduction theory (URT) and self-monitoring
behavior theory, provide insight into the chal-
lenges of working online.

Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT)

When people meet online, they lose the ability to
communicate nonverbally. Nonverbal communi-
cation is important as we often look for signs of

Uncertainty in a virtual environment

Nonverbal communication is limited
or nonexistent.
Visual learners (most people) find it
hard to work in a dominantly audio
environment.
Computer anxiety—technical
difficulties.
Keyboarding skills—inability to
keep up, or hitting the wrong keys.
Less immediate anxiety—could be
delayed (worry about how an e-mail
is perceived)
 Virtual Communications: Theory and Practice 27

agreement or approval in the faces or body lan-

guage of others. When we lose the ability to com-
municate nonverbally, an uneasy atmosphere is
created, which increases personal uncertainty.
To reduce uncertainty, many people install
webcams on their computers to construct a type
of videoconferencing room. This may help, but
because of internet bandwidth issues, video may
last for a limited time or not at all. URT suggests
that asking questions can help reduce uncer-
tainty. Using interactive exercises is another
way to achieve the needed validation. Anxiety
will occur most frequently with people we have
never met or when we care what the other person
thinks of us.
As auditors, we need to be aware of the follow-
ing negative reactions most commonly felt by the
auditee during heightened anxiety levels:
• People with low self-esteem can create
fear of feeling incompetent or of not being
in control of the situation, along with
awkwardness and frustration.
• Fear of negative behavioral consequences
causes distrust, exploitation, and
manipulation.
• Fear of negative evaluations by strangers
creates feelings of being rejected,
ridiculed, or disapproved.
28 Chapter Two

Virtual Communications

Self-Monitoring Behavior
The second theory we want to discuss is self-­
monitoring behavior. Self-monitoring behavior
maintains that some people are sensitive to how
they are perceived by others, while others are not.
Individuals with high self-monitoring behav-
ior give more attention to how they are viewed
by others, even in online environments. These
­people are quicker to ask questions and provide
validation, which helps them adapt to meeting
online more easily compared with the low self-­
monitoring individuals.
Folks with low self-monitoring behavior often
appear semi-absent from meetings as a result
of multitasking (taking a phone call, check-
ing e-mail, being late to return, or doing other
work). This behavior may be perceived as hostile
because they are not as engaged and involved in
the meeting. In this environment, miscommuni-
cation occurs, a false sense of security develops,
and distrust is validated.

Silence During Communications

Silence is often caused by multitasking partic-
ipants reading their e-mail, texting others, or
surfing the web. Silence could stem from not
 Virtual Communications: Theory and Practice 29

Low-monitoring behavior
More likely to blurt out something that
would not be said in person.
Multitasking!
• Texting
• E-mailing
• Allowing for disruptions
They may be late to rejoin after breaks.
Behavior may seem hostile and disengaged.

knowing when to talk. Silence also results from

the auditees or auditors not having the correct
skill set for communicating over the internet.
Some silence in an online meeting is normal, but
too much should be avoided. Keeping communica-
tion going is more important in an online environ-
ment than when participants can see each other
and use body language. In a way, one may con-
sider body language in a face-to-face meeting as
a stimulus, such as persons moving, getting up
and leaving the room, changing positions, and
so on. Hence, techniques need to be used to keep
online meeting participants engaged.
30 Chapter Two

Building Trust in Remote

Audits: Three-Stage
Development
When we are introduced to someone new, we typ-
ically step through these three stages to building
trust (see Figure 2.2). Initially, if available, we

Stage One
• Passive social information seeking
• Asking others about someone
• Interacting with the person

Stage Two
• People discuss experience and
background
• Find commonality
• Share process issues

Stage Three
• Make plans
• Exit

figure 2.2 The three stages to building trust.

 Virtual Communications: Theory and Practice 31

ask people we know about this person or perhaps

even Google them.
When we meet with them we begin a conver-
sation looking for some type of commonality—­
perhaps where someone is from, what companies
they have worked for, or where they went to
school. Auditors can spend the first five to ten
minutes of an opening meeting looking for com-
monality and building trust with the auditee.
Perhaps talk about the weather or the auditee’s
place of residence. Who knows—it may be a place
you want to visit on a vacation. Small talk needs
to be gender-, race-, and politically neutral. Avoid
geographical bashing and negativity.

Typically, when we first meet

someone, we look for some type
of commonality.

Next, we make plans to accomplish work

together. Now is a good time for you as the audi-
tor to clearly define the audit process and discuss
the audit plan. Most online audits are without
cameras, and you will not have met in person.
Trust can be built without cameras by setting
up clear processes so the auditees understand
what is expected from them, and by asking a few
questions to learn more about the person you are
32 Chapter Two

auditing. Ensure that everyone is comfortable

with the technology and understands the audit
process. Ensure that the audit is being done at a
time that’s convenient for them.

Building Trust in Remote

Audits: Meeting Protocols
By outlining expectations in the opening meet-
ing, auditors can define proper behavior for the
online audit. Auditors can create an inviting
environment by calming nerves and setting
behavioral expectations.

Increase
self-monitoring
behaviors

Decrease
uncertainty
and anxiety

To calm nerves and decrease anxiety you should:

• Conduct technical testing prior to
the audit
• Send an audit plan well in advance
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
 'Yes; and I shall cross your path no more. Our lives are shaped out for us
to a great extent, and mine was planned out for me by others. Oh, by what
infernal fatality have you, too, the name of Laura!'

'It was, I suppose, given me by my godfathers and godmothers. You

seem to be familiar with it,' she added, with one of her merriest laughs.

Dalton knew that a lover laughed at has a lost cause; he knew too—
fatally for his own peace—that the love he had for weeks upon weeks past
been striving to stifle in his breast, was a love that he had no right to offer;
but her reception of it stung him deeply, and in reply to her laughter he said,
gravely and steadily,

'Then I am to understand that you have been amusing yourself with me

—simply flirting to keep your hand in, Mrs. Trelawney?' he asked, in a
voice that was intensely low and clear.

'Precisely so,' she said, with a nod and a saucy smile; 'playing the game
that always requires two to play it.'

'What game?'

'Love-making.'

'Cruel—cruel! God may forgive you, but I never will!' he exclaimed,

and wheeling round his horse, galloped furiously away.

How astonished Dalton would have been could he have seen the change
that came over the face and manner of the lady he had just left so abruptly.

Her eyes flashed with joyous triumph, yet they were full of welling
tears; her lip quivered; her cheeks were deeply flushed; an agitation beyond
her control made her whole form to vibrate; and as she struck her gloved
hands together she exclaimed, in a low and fervent voice, with almost a sob
in it, 'At last—at last I have completely triumphed—have ground him to the
dust! At last he loves me, and I have conquered his cold, proud heart!'
 Then leaping lightly as a girl from her horse, on reaching her own gate,
she passionately embraced and kissed little Netty again and again, greatly to
the bewilderment of the child, who had never seen her mother so agitated
before.

That night she despatched a note to the camp requesting Captain Dalton
to visit her again.

All the next day passed, and no answer came.

Her excitement became intense; she sent a messenger to the North

Camp to make inquiries, and he returned with the, to her, now most startling
tidings that the Rifles had marched that morning for embarkation, and that
her note was lying undelivered in the empty hut of Captain Dalton, who had
left the lines for Southampton.

She had boasted to him laughingly and with affected pride and
bitterness of the game she had been playing. She had held a trump card in
her hand, and now it seemed that she had played and lost it.

'I have gone too far, too far, and now may lose him altogether, and after
all—after all!' she exclaimed, with genuine dismay.

CHAPTER IX.

'THE ROUTE!'

It was so; those comfortless wooden wigwams in the lines of the North
Camp, which had known the Rifles for so many months, now, in the words
of the Book of Job, knew them no more; and nothing of the smart but
sombre battalion now remained there save a few soldiers—recruits whose
training was not complete, or men whose time of service was nearly
expired.
 The mess had been broken up, its massive and trophied service of plate
packed up and placed in the charge of Goring, who had command of the
fragment of the battalion left behind. The senior captain of a regiment was
never employed on this duty, as, for obvious reasons, his presence at
headquarters is always desirable.

On the eventful morning of their march from camp the gallant battalion
of the 'Prince Consort's Own' scarcely knew themselves in their new
'Ashanti toggery,' as they called it, which was furnished from the stores at
Pimlico, and consisted, for each man, of a grey tweed tunic, resembling a
shooting-jacket, suitable for the climate, with ample pockets; belt and
trousers of the same material, and rough canvas leggings; the head-dress, a
light grey Indian helmet, perhaps the first time such a thing had been worn
on British ground.

Soldier-like looked the Rifles in their black belts and their heavy
marching order, with knapsacks, haversacks, great-coats, canteens, and
water-bottles.

If there was little of the pomp and circumstance of war in this costume,
by repetition in numbers and by uniformity in the mass it did not seem
unimposing; and if splendour was wanting, certainly enthusiasm was not,
and loud and hearty were the cheers that rang along the Lines from one
street of huts to another, as the grey column, preceded by the bands of
several corps, began its short march to the railway which was to convey it
to Southampton just as the red sun of November, the pioneer of winter,
shone out through clouds that had a ragged and dreary look in a grey and
gloomy sky.

The moorlands around Aldershot were odorous with withered bracken,

and a stray heron might have been seen, perhaps, at Fleet Pond, motionless
amid the water as if sculptured in bronze; in the adjacent thickets the
woodsman was going forth, armed with axe and bill-hook, his dog close
behind him, heedless of war and its accompaniments, pausing, perhaps, as
he heard in the distance on the ambient air the crash of the brass bands that
led the Rifles on the first part of the long route to terrible Ashanti, or it
might be the chorus of hundreds of manly voices shouting 'Cheer, boys,
cheer,' on the wind of the early morning, but he was thinking only of the
bundles of faggots on his shoulder, the crackling fire, the clean-swept
hearth, the kettle on the hob, and the trim little wife that awaited him at
home.

Bevil Goring was accompanying the battalion to Southampton to see the

last of his friends, and to 'kill,' as he thought, 'another day of suspense,' the
long and empty days of waiting with gloomy forebodings.

It seemed to him that a few hours had wrought a curious change in both
Jerry Wilmot and Tony Dalton, but more especially in the latter, who from
being a grave, earnest, and pleasant fellow had suddenly became morose,
preoccupied, and even sullen and most impatient; one thing alone seemed to
gratify him—the sudden and speedy departure to the seat of war.

'What has come to you, my dear fellow?' asked Goring more than once;
'you look as if you were going into a fever.'

'I am in a fever of the mind, Goring,' replied Dalton, 'and I may tell you
all about it before the transport sails.'

Among the crowd that assembled to see the battalion depart were many
ladies on horseback. There was one under whose tightly-tied veil the hot
tears were falling, as she saw Jerry march past in the strange Ashanti
uniform at the head of his company; but Jerry—his sad thoughts turned
inward—saw not her, and he had no prevision that she of whom his heart
was so full at that moment—Bella Chevenix—was so near him.

'Time will test his truth,' thought the girl; 'true love does not die, but the
false only, as it depends upon outward influences. Yet time may see this
regiment return, and Jerry not with it—oh, God, if it should be—not with
it!'

And the crash of the brass bands went on, and the tramp of the steadily
marching column, the flash of accoutrements and arms, the cheers, the
chorusing, the general hubbub, all portions of a terrible phantasmagoria,
amid which he was taken away from her.
 Southampton was reached in due time, and by sound of bugle the
battalion was 'detrained,' to use the term now in use, and marched to the
steam transport which lay in those busy and stately docks, where of old the
sea had ebbed and flowed upon a silent and sandy shore, and where, it is
difficult now to believe, Canute the Dane sat in a chair, and took his part in
that well-known incident by which he rebuked the flattery of his courtiers.

By a hand gangway the grey column defiled at once on board the ship,
whose capacious womb received it. The men were speedily divided into
their watches; a guard was detailed; berths were apportioned; arms racked;
knapsacks hung on pegs or cleats; bedding inspected; duck shirts and
fatigue trousers served out; and so, for a time, the officers and sergeants had
a busy time of it; while a thousand mysterious returns, receipts, and
requisitions seemed to require the signature of the colonel and everyone
else, and these were affixed on the capstan head, the gunwale, the back of
the nearest soldier, or anything else that might be improvised as a table.

Incessant was the clatter of the donkey-engines as stores were taken on

board, baggage, shot, shell, gatling-guns, waggons, provisions, wheel-
barrows, shovels, and pickaxes in bundles. Night fell, and still the odious
hurly-burly on deck and by the gaping hatchways went on, to the sound of
many a merry chorus or song at times:

'It's no matter what you do,

If your heart be only true.
And his heart was true to his Poll.'

Though our soldiers are generally too young to have wives nowadays,
in these short-service times, a few years ago it was not so; thus several
women of the Rifle Battalion, some with babies in their arms, had followed
it to Southampton to see the last of those they might never look upon again.

'Good-bye, my poor Mary,' Goring heard a young soldier cry, looking

wistfully to his girl-wife, who stood weeping on the quay, where she held
up their baby from time to time. 'How are you to get back to camp?'
 'Never mind, Tom darling; I'm here, anyhow.'

'Have you any money?'

'No.'

'God help you, darling,' he replied, and proceeded in a mechanical but

hopeless way to investigate his pockets.

'I'll take her back, and all the women of ours who are here. Pass the
message along, lads,' cried Bevil Goring, who now gave a sergeant carte
blanche to distribute money among all for what they required, and directing
them all to meet him at the railway station next morning.

'Three cheers for Captain Goring!' was now the cry, and many men
crowded gratefully forward to salute him and shake his hand, while he felt
now that he could spend some of the rupees of Bevil Goring of Chowringee
to good purpose; and sure enough he met his strange detachment at the
station next morning; and after giving them a hearty breakfast, including
buns and cans of milk galore for the little ones, he brought them all into
camp, while the transport was steaming down the waters of the Solent, and
heading for the Channel.

But in this part of our narrative we are anticipating certain events which
occurred at Southampton, and which Dalton and Goring, but more
particularly the former, were destined to have long in their memory.

CHAPTER X.

THE SECRET OF DALTON'S LIFE.

'I cannot understand the terms on which you say you and Mrs.
Trelawney have parted,' said Goring, to whom his most valued friend
Dalton had been, as a sort of relief to his own mind, apparently making
what he called 'a clean breast of it,' and detailing his relations with the fair
widow of Chilcote Grange. 'You seem to have made love enough to her—
that I saw for myself often. You seemed to have expressed admiration
enough for her, to all of which she appears to have listened with patience
and pleasure in some instances; with impatience and petulance in others;
and yet you seem to have wound up with a kind of quarrel at last!'

'She acknowledged that she had only been amusing herself and
befooling me.'

'It would also seem by your own account that amid all the curious love-
making you never made her a direct proposal of marriage.'

'No.'

'Why?'

'I dared not,' said Dalton, sadly.

'You dared not—and why?'

'Because—because I am a married man—there now, the murder is out!'

'A married man—you, Tony Dalton!' exclaimed Goring, in utter

bewilderment.

'I, Tony Dalton—the biggest fool in Her Majesty's service,' replied that
personage, with a groan.

'Does Mrs. Trelawney know of this state of affairs?' asked Goring, after
a long pause.

'I have more than once feared as much.'

'She hinted to me once that there was a secret in your life that precluded
her reception of your addresses. Then it is so?'
 'Yes, that I am a married man,' replied Dalton, as he threw open his dark
green and silk-braided patrol jacket (which he had resumed after the march)
as if its collar choked him, tossed his half-finished cigar into the blazing
fire, and drained his glass only to replenish it again.

It was in a hotel at Southampton, not far from where the transport lay,
when they were having a 'farewell drink' after a cutlet or so, that Dalton
made this astounding revelation to his friend—one that seemed fully to
account for many peculiarities which the latter had remarked in Dalton's
intercourse with Mrs. Trelawney.

'Why, in the name of all that is wonderful, have you concealed this so
long?'

'An emotion of shame perhaps—shame at my own egregious folly tied

my tongue.'

'But when, where, how did it all come about?'

'The most miserable stories are often told in a few words, and thus told
best; and, Goring, I shall tell you mine,' replied Dalton.

'When I was being educated for the service—my parents being dead—I
was boarded by my uncle Sir John Dalton—on whose hands and generosity
I was utterly cast—with a tutor at Hastings.

'My uncle was most generous. I had quarterly as much pocket-money—

too much indeed—as a young fellow in his early teens could desire to have;
I had a horse at my command, a pleasure-boat whenever I liked it, and was
a frequent attender at the theatre; for my tutor was a careless fellow, fond of
amusement too, and did not look sufficiently after me.

'All this was some ten or twelve years ago. At the theatre there was a
young girl who figured in the bills as Miss Laura Dorillion, and who was
deemed quite a star.

'One story went that she was a lady of high family, who, in a rage for
histrionic fame, had fled from home, changed her name, and adopted the
stage as a profession; another story was that she was the only daughter of a
man of rank, whom dissipation or bad speculations on the turf had ruined;
and rumour added that, when only twelve years of age, she had played
Juliet to perfection in amateur theatricals at a fashionable West End School;
at fifteen she was a genius; at seventeen she was cast as Miss Hardcastle in
the "School for Scandal;" and more than once when I saw her as Juliet I
longed, with all my soul, to be her Romeo.

'Boylike I fell madly in love with her—in love as dreamy boys at my

then years are wont to do—and nightly I haunted the theatre, often in
defiance of my tutor, and my studies became a farce; in fact they were
utterly neglected, and I had but one thought—Laura Dorillion!

'How pretty—how sweetly pretty—the name sounded to me, and I was

never weary of repeating it to myself.

'Was she pretty, you will ask? When made-up for the stage and
surrounded by all its accessories, she looked downright lovely; but, when
watching her going from her lodgings to morning rehearsal, I was obliged
to confess to myself that my goddess had rather a large mouth, but fine eyes
with a sleepy or dreamy expression, long lashes and drooping lids of which
she could make a most seductive use; that in figure she was tall but not
ungraceful, and was neither fully grown nor developed; but there seemed a
great want of finish about her for one who was alleged to be the daughter of
a noble family. This might proceed, I thought, from the style of her toilette,
which certainly did not come from Swan & Edgar's.

'The girl was quite a favourite in Hastings; she played for, sang for, and
subscribed to many local charities, and had about her none of that fastness
of dress or demeanour peculiar to so many young girls on the stage; and so I
loved her, or thought I did. I was but a boy—it was what the French—so
happy in their phrases—call un grand caprice enflammé par des obstacles
—nothing more, perhaps; and the obstacles were my lack of independent
means to take her off the stage; my having no profession; and my uncle's
well known family pride, position, and general views regarding me, his
brother's only son, and all that sort of thing. Otherwise, I might have
continued "to sigh like a furnace," and eventually, when I went elsewhere,
forget her; but it was not to be.
 'I was not a bad-looking fellow, and always dressed scrupulously well;
thus she was not long in discovering me as I sat night after night, bouquet in
hand, in a certain pit stall; and she no doubt connected me with the beautiful
bouquets that came to the stage door nightly, in more than one instance with
little complimentary notes on pink and perfumed paper inserted therein.

'Once she appeared at the wings with one of these notes in her hand. She
blew me a kiss from the tips of her fingers, and placed the missive in her
bosom, two little actions which raised me to the seventh heaven of ecstacy.
After that Laura Dorillion sang to me, acted to me, glanced and smiled at
me in a way that completed her conquest, and, in short, I was a lost Tony
Dalton!

'As a pledge of solemn engagement, I gave her a diamond and opal ring.

'In the end I achieved an introduction in the most matter-of-fact way in

the world—just as Sir Walter Scott did to his first love—by the prosaic offer
of my umbrella on a wet day, and then my dream began to take a more
tangible form in little lunches and solid presents, in escorting her to and
from the theatre, which became an established kind of expected duty; in
walks on the Sunday mornings along the towering cliffs that overhang the
sea; along the breezy Marina; by the Lover's Seat in lonely Fairlight Glen
with its thickly wooded sides and tapestry of wild flowers; by the Dripping
Well, that an enormous beech-tree overhangs; among the ruins of the old
castle, when "the old, old tale" was told again—not of Hastin and his men,
or of Saxons or Normans—but of our love for each other, and life became
to me a species of feverish intoxication for some weeks at least.

'Some little points of manner, accent, pronunciation certainly did at

times jar upon my better taste; and she seemed, for a girl educated at a West
End seminary for young ladies, rather ignorant of the manners and customs
of that "society" which she affected in genteel comedy to pourtray upon the
stage; but the former I attributed to association with her inferiors—to wit,
the members of the company to which she belonged.

'From what you know of my disposition and general character, you may
guess the end of all this.'
 'No—I do not,' said Goring.

'I married her.'

'Whew!' whistled Goring; 'in church?'

'In church! where she was given away by the manager. The "heavy old
woman" acted as mother, two young ladies of the company were
bridesmaids, and when, tremulously, she subscribed herself in the register
Laura Dorillion, the clerk and the pew-opener gave their signatures as
witnesses. The breakfast is but a confused memory. There was no rice—no
old slippers; and we are told that no girl likes to be married without any of
the gay things which make marriage such a joyous experience—no gay
preparations—no pretty wedding in a flower-decked church—no presents—
not even a new dress!'

'Well?'

'Then came a life of misery and jealousy. I trembled when other men
went near her, and boiled with exasperation when love was openly made to
her on the stage in the mere business of the play. I had seen enough of that
done before with considerable placidity, but somehow I could not stand it
now.

'With my last quarter's allowance in my pocket, and utterly vague ideas

of the future in my mind, I left the house of my tutor and went to share her
humble lodging in a rather obscure part of Hastings, and soon the sordid
nature of our surroundings began to impress me most disagreeably, as the
bubble began to burst.

'At last there came a night which I was fated not to forget for a time.

'I had brought her home from the theatre, where she had acquitted
herself with singular skill and sweetness as blind Iolanthe in "King René's
Daughter," and she was in the act of repeating a portion of her dialogue
with Tristan as we ascended the stair—
 "Another time,
When I had pined for many tedious days,
Because my father was detained from home,
I wept for very gladness when he came!
Through tears I gave my bursting heart relief,
And at mine eyes it found a rushing vent."

'In our little sitting-room I found an elderly man, wearing a battered

grey hat girt by a black band, and clad in shabby-genteel—nay, quite
threadbare garments—standing on the hearthrug, smoking a short clay pipe,
with his coat-tails over his arms, his bleared and tipsy-looking eyes—one of
which had a white plaister over it—regarding the furniture and details of the
apartment critically, while he took a sip from a pewter mug of beer, and set
it down with a clank.

'"Hullo, my girl," he exclaimed; "here you are at last! This here is a rum
go. So this is the young gent as you have gone and made such a fool of
yourself by marrying?"

'Laura's heart was beating fast—so fast that even respiration seemed to
suffocate her; her face was blanched; her eyes had a scared expression; and
gave me a glance that seemed full of shame and agony.

'"Who is this impertinent scoundrel?" I demanded.

'"Scoundrel in your teeth again!" he exclaimed, turning up the cuffs of

his coat, threateningly, and striking his battered hat firmly on his head; "is
this your company manners, you young cub?" he added, with a frightful
imprecation.

'"Who are you, and what do you want here?" I demanded, looking about
for a stick.

'"Dabchick is my name! Jo Dabchick, clown, Banger's Circus,

Surreyside o' the river, and no mistake; and I have come here to see my own
daughter, Laura Dorillion, as she calls herself, or must it be Mrs. Antony
Dalton now—Lady Dalton perhaps that's to be, when your uncle hops his
blessed twig?"

'"Oh, father," said Laura, in a breathless voice, "why have you come,
and how did you find me out?"

'"I come because I want money; and, as for finding you out, that was
easy enough; the Hastings theatre ain't at the bottom of the sea."

"'And mother?"

'"Is there in your bed—has had a drop too much, and so I have tucked
her in there; and now what have you got for supper—tripe, sausages,
bloaters, or summat tasty, I hope? Speak—you look as lively as a couple of
glow-worms in the sunshine!"

'My soul sickened within me! And with these additions to our little
household—a slatternly, odious mother, a beery, broken-down actor, whose
line had once been genteel comedy, a clown in a circus latterly, but whose
incessant dissipation had deprived him of all employment—life became a
burden now, and my stupendous folly stood in letters of fire before me.

'Existence became unendurable, and neither Laura nor I dared to look

forward to the dark and vague future we might be doomed to drag out in the
world.

'Their arrival filled my wife with shame and anger, and I do believe with
generous sorrow for me. My quarter's pittance was soon expended; her
salary could not maintain us all. My tutor soon discovered the whole
situation, and laid it mercilessly bare before my uncle, Sir John Dalton, who
from that hour cast me off, ignored my letters and my existence, and
disinherited me by his will.

'I had no money, or means of getting any, after the best of my jewellery
and wardrobe had departed. Laura's father and mother soon proved abusive
and most obnoxious to me; they insulted me hourly, and eventually drove
me from the squalid lodgings we shared together. Laura one night took their
part; it required but that to fill up the measure of my disgust, and I found
myself wandering in the streets with all I possessed in the world—the
clothes that I wore. I rooted the love of her out of my heart; but it was long
before I could efface her image, which often a fancied resemblance in
another brought before me.

'There are some men of whom it is said that they will not acknowledge
their false steps even to their own hearts; but I am not one of them, and
must acknowledge, dear Goring, that in sackcloth and ashes I have repented
of mine.

'My haughty uncle proving obdurate to the last degree, there was no
hope for me so far as he was concerned; so I took the Queen's shilling and
sailed for India, and there I strove to forget my boyish folly, the
contemptible position I had occupied with such a father and mother-in-law,
the disgust and horror with which their advent and their surroundings
inspired me—sick, too, of the slatternly girl I had married, for slatternly she
too was in her home and when off the stage, reserving all her toilettes and
her graces for the British public.

'You know the rest. I soon got a commission through the ranks—sooner
than I could have got it through the medium of a crammer and exams. From
the hour I turned at midnight along the Marina of Hastings, and heard the
monotonous sound of the surge, as it rolled on the beach in the dark, I have
never heard of my wife or been able to trace her. Her odious parents I
discovered have been long since dead, and that she is no longer on the
stage, or, if so, bears another name, or has gone I know not where.

'I have sometimes hoped that I had been freed from her by death—
ungenerous though that hope may be, and that my uncle must have heard of
her demise, when by a codicil to his will he left me all his fortune. And now
you know why it was that I dared not make a proposal to Mrs. Trelawney—
nor did I ever think of love or marriage till I met her lately; and how I love
her, and have struggled to tear that hopeless passion from my heart, is
known only to God and to myself!'
 CHAPTER XI.

THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW.

'Poor Dalton! you have indeed suffered deeply—paid dear for your
boyish folly,' said Goring, as the former concluded the little story of his
early life in a voice tremulous with emotion. 'Now the apparent
inconsistency of your attention to Mrs. Trelawney is quite accounted for.'

'Until I knew myself free to ask her to be my wife I had sworn in my

inner heart that I would not do so—indeed, I dared not do so; yet, for the
life of me, attracted as I was, I could not help hovering about her; but now I
am going to Ashanti, and there is an end of it! Such was the end of the fatal
passion of a foolish lad. Since those days I have never entered a theatre, and
shudder at the mere idea of a dramatic situation.'

'You are in one now,' said a sweet and tremulous voice, as Mrs.
Trelawney, who, unseen and unheard by them in their preoccupation, had
softly entered the room, stood before them.

How much or how little she had overheard they did not precisely know,
but with a smile of mingled sadness and sweetness, pride and triumph, she
threw up her veil, and the full light of the gasalier overhead fell upon her
rich, shining hair, her beautiful and animated countenance.

'Mrs. Trelawney!' exclaimed the friends together, as they started from

their chairs.

'You here—in Southampton!' added Dalton, in a voice tremulous with

bewilderment.

'Yes. Can it be that you have yet to learn that I am that Laura Dorillion
to whom you gave this opal and diamond ring, with whom you spent so
many a sweet hour, by Fairlight Glen, the East Cliffs that overhang the sea,
by the Dripping Well, and amid the old castle walls at Hastings—the Laura
whom you married, and from whom you so coldly fled?'
 Dalton tried to speak, but his voice was gone; he could but stretch his
hand towards her, without advancing, while regarding her with growing
bewilderment; so she spoke again, with tears in her voice.

'You ought to have forgiven me the humility of my origin, for that I

could not help—ay, forgiven me long ago, Anthony. Remember that "he
who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself," for
"every man hath need of forgiveness," we are told.'

'My wife—you?' exclaimed Dalton.

'Laura—your own wife, whom you married in St. Clement's Church on

the tenth of August. You remember the day?'

The words were simple, but spoken with great pathos, and all her
sparkling manner seemed to have left her as she seated herself, and he hung
over her.

'Do you forgive me, Laura, and pardon me—pardon me, and love me?'

'You know that I love you.'

He was about to put an arm round her, when he paused, and said,

'But whence this name of Trelawney?'

'I assumed it from an aunt, who left me a small fortune, but for which I
—I might have been compelled to struggle in penury on the stage to support
your daughter.'

'My daughter!' exclaimed Dalton, a great love for the beautiful little girl
lie knew suddenly gushing up in his heart. 'My daughter—mine?'

'Our child,' said Laura, softly.

'Born—when?'

'Six months after you left me at Hastings.'

 'But her name—of Antoinette?'

'Is but the feminine of your own—Anthony.'

'Oh, what a blind fool I have been—Laura—Laura!'

Goring, who had been studying a picture on the wall, now thought he
might as well withdraw softly, and smoke his cigar outside.

Taller in stature, fuller in figure, more fully developed in every way, and
with a bearing, manner, and grace cultivated by those among whom she had
moved, it required a certain effort to recognise in her the girlish Laura
Dorillion of the past time. Though her whole style was different—finer and
more statuesque—and the mode of her toilette and of dressing her hair was
different, her voice and the inflections of it, her expression of eye, the droop
of the lid and flicker of the long lash, and the sweet smile of her lip were, he
now saw, all unchanged, and he pressed her to his breast in the rapture of
the moment, forgetting that the transport which was soon to bear him away
was at that supreme moment of joy having her fires banked up preparatory
to putting to sea.

'And you love me, Laura?' he never was tired of repeating, and hearing
the sweet admission that she did so. 'Oh, why have you concealed till this—
why have you concealed yourself thus, and from me?'

'I wished to try you—to test you—to compel you to love me, and I have
done so, have I not?' she asked, taking his face between her hands and
gazing tenderly into his eyes.

'You know now what fettered my tongue,' said he, with a sigh.

'I knew you were in bondage—but it was in bondage to me. Your love
for me was an insult to myself; your compliments and intentions in the
present time, were an implied insult to my past. You dared to love me,
knowing that you had a wife somewhere—where, you knew not; but you
little thought that Mrs. Trelawney, the supposed widow of a mythical
Trelawney, and Laura Dorillion were one and the same person. Now, is the
situation dramatic? Do you remember that you told me that you loved me
against your own will and conscience, and that my very name of Laura
repressed that love at times? Heavens, could you but know what I felt—
how my heart was wrung—my woman's pride alternately roused and
crushed by admissions such as these! I have suffered greatly, darling, but all
is over now,' she added, laying her cheek on his breast, while his lips were
pressed to her forehead.

After a time, she spoke again.

'I knew not that you were in the Army, or were in life. I knew not of
your existence till I met you suddenly at Aldershot, after I had lived years of
seclusion in the Channel Isles. I thanked God for the discovery; I vowed to
win you again, if I could, before I would reveal myself—and I have done
so.'

She whose love he had so longed and prayed for, and yet striven to root
out of his heart, was now his own—his own after all; and all the pent-up
love of lonely years had found reward at last.

'Often before I met you again—discovered you, and vowed to make you
mine again, I had pondered that, but for Netty's sake, whether, taking it all
in all, the good with the bad, life was worth living,' said she, her eyes full of
tears now.

'And till now, Laura, my life has seemed a gloomy and empty one. I was
often appalled by the aimlessness and isolation of it.'

'How strange it is that you never discovered me!' said Laura; 'yet I have
seen your eyes wander more than once to this engagement ring.'

'And stranger still that when I heard you sing the old, old song that was
once so familiar, making my heart thrill with troubled memories, no light
came to me. Oh, Laura, you acted well your part to this joyous ending.'

'I told you that I had found the verses in an old album, where a friend
wrote them years ago; that friend was yourself. You remember so lately
telling me that I had ruined your life?'
 'Yes, Laura, and your cruel smile.'

'God knows how at that moment I longed to cast myself on your breast,
Anthony, as I do now, and barter all my past wrongs for a single kiss!'

His Christian name again on her lips, as in the days of their boy and girl
love, ere the black change came, and how strange, yet familiar—how sweet,
how dear it sounded!

'How did you learn I was here with Goring?' he asked, tenderly.

'I learned it at the transport.'

'My darling—my darling, why have you kept all this secret so long—the
secret that you were my own?'

'As I told you, I would never be more to you than I am now, were I to
live a hundred years, and was I not right?'

'But to keep the secret so long—I might never have learned it, for to-
morrow will see us separated. Hastings was the first volume of our
romance.'

'Southampton was the second.'

'The third is Ashanti. How it will end, God alone knows, darling,' he
added, straining her in his embrace, while her tears fell fast now; 'if spared
to return to you, Laura—to you and little Netty—you will never regret your
love and trust in me at last—your confidence in my affection.'

Poor Dalton—'if spared;' he was right to say that, with the fate and
fortune of a barbarous war before him.

The old love had become the new one, and the new love was the old;
and yet it seemed that to-night both had entered on a new relationship.

And, as we have said, the two last appeals of Jerry Wilmot and Dalton
ended differently. Practically they came to the same conclusion—a
separation from those they loved.
 Laura now deplored deeply her pride and folly, as she deemed it, in
playing the game she had done so long; but the separation had to be faced
and endured; yet she watched the transport, as it steamed down
Southampton water, till it melted into the haze; and it was not until then that
she fully realised that her husband, so lately restored to her, was gone again,
and perhaps for ever.

But that her appearance on board would have excited speculation in the
battalion, she would have gone down the Channel with the steamer and
come ashore in the pilot's boat at Deal.

On the long, though rapid voyage, Dalton had ample food for reflection,
for thinking of the strangeness of his fate, that for months past he had been
associating with, meeting and seeing at intervals, and loving deeply, a
woman who was his own wife, and yet he knew it not!

Why had she played this perilous game so long?

Why, but for the temptation to win him again, and for the gratification
of a kind of affectionate vengeance. And now they were separated, each
with but a memory to the other again.

A few photos and two locks of hair—the light blond hair of his wife, a
golden curl of his little daughter—were all that poor Dalton took with him
to the burning coast of Ashanti, to remind him of the happiness he had so
lately and so briefly tasted, and might never taste more.

CHAPTER XII.

BEVIL GORING'S RESOLUTION.

In his bitter anxiety Bevil Goring condescended again to apply to Mr.

Solomon Slagg as to the movements of Lord Cadbury; but ignorant perhaps
of the peer's actual whereabouts, and that the applicant was now the
possessor of twenty thousand per annum, he never vouchsafed the slightest
reply.

Alison had promised to wait for him a year—and well he knew that, if
left to herself, she would have waited for several. Would she be true to that
promise? Could he but find her now, he would have no compunction in
carrying her off, whatever her father might say, though it would seem that
the brave old Scottish days of Lochinvar and Jock of Hazeldean are over
and for ever.

The corps was gone now, and he felt dull and lonely with the dépôt,
which would probably soon be taken from the camp to Chatham or
elsewhere, and the little duty he had of it consisted chiefly of drilling and
training green hands, and taking them through a weary course of musketry,
while his thoughts were elsewhere, and he soon began to feel that, if he did
not soon learn tidings of Alison, he would 'leave no stone unturned' to get
away from Aldershot—to get away to fight the Ashantees or any other
folks; and the next moment he would be thankful that he was left behind to
search for her.

To search for her—but where?

Ay, where? He was soon to receive a terrible rouser!

One day he visited Mrs. Trelawney to inform her that the transport with
Dalton and the regiment on board had been spoken with by a vessel some
sixty miles westward of Ushant, when he found her in the act of writing a
note to himself, and looking somewhat nervous and disturbed in manner.

She received him with unusual kindness, and with a kind of sympathy in
her manner that puzzled him.

After a little pause, while eyeing him closely, she said,

'You have seen this morning's paper, I presume?'

 'Yes,' said he, and his heart seemed to flutter, as it was evident that she
had seen something therein that he had not.

'Did you not see the announcement of——'

'Of what?' he asked, impetuously, as Mrs. Trelawney paused, her lips

apparently unable to tell to what she referred, and with tremulous hands she
took up a morning paper and searched for a particular paragraph or passage,
while Goring felt his heart sickening, as he never doubted it referred to the
marriage of Alison, who, he feared, had yielded to her father's iron
influence at last.

'Read this—but nerve yourself first, my dear friend,' said Mrs.

Trelawney, in her sweet low voice.

'It is confidently asserted that the English yacht reported as having been
sunk some weeks ago in a midnight collision with the lugger Le Chien Noir,
of Ostend, off the mouth of the Maese, is Lord Cadbury's beautiful
brigantine the Firefly, so well known at the Cowes Regattas. Sir Ranald
Cheyne of Essilmont and suite were on board.'

He grew deadly pale and reeled, but, recovering, read the fatal
paragraph again and again, till the letters seemed photographed on his brain,
and he was scarcely conscious. Mrs. Dalton, as we must call her now, was
in tears, and had taken his left hand caressingly between her own.

'Shocked as I am by this news, which I trust in heaven may be untrue, I

am shocked,' said she, 'to be first to break it to you; but you must have
learned it in time, and perhaps even more abruptly, and from those less able
to sympathise with you.'

He covered his eyes and did not speak.

'You observed,' said Laura, 'that the writer says it is reported—which

leaves room for hope—and we were told that the yacht had gone to the
Mediterranean.'
 'Which I began to suspect was a ruse, and this awful intelligence seems
to prove that I was right,' said Goring, in a very broken voice. 'My poor
Alison—my poor Alison.'

He threw himself into a chair, and a silence for some minutes ensued.

Separation and opposition were to be looked forward to, and had been
encountered and effected. Even a marriage with Lord Cadbury was not
improbable; had not his own heart told him so but a few minutes before?
But a catastrophe like this—death—death by drowning—was altogether
unlooked for!

Sad and broken was the conversation now between him and Laura
Dalton, and they could but surmise and conjecture in vain, while he
lingered long with her, as he clung to her presence and society for
sympathy.

Drowned—gone—out of the world—away from him, and for ever! It

seemed incredible, unrealisable!

He recalled more powerfully than ever now her loving words, her tender
and winning expression of eye; again he felt in memory the pressure of her
soft little hand, her gentle kisses, and the sea seemed to give up its dead at
the only exorcism it will obey—that of a bereaved and faithful heart—and
his beloved was with him as on that last time he saw her face.

'Drowned—lost!' he struck his hands together, and often passed one

across his eyes, as if to clear away a mist before him.

And he thought—he could think of nothing else—of her delicate and

beloved form being the sport of the cold, dark waves—it might be the prey
of the dwellers therein—that awful grave, without turf or flowers, which no
sunshine would ever brighten to his eyes—the cruel sea that had taken her
from him for ever!

Times there were when but for this feature in his loss he might have
thanked Heaven that it was death—only death—that separated him from his
darling, and not a degrading marriage with that odious old man. And in the
extremity of his grief he at times forgot to feel anger at either him or her
father for the catastrophe they were the unintentional means of bringing
about.

But anger and rage too were coming soon.

When Goring was sitting like a man turned to stone, evincing little sign
of life save when he sighed heavily, Laura Dalton kindly laid a hand on his
shoulder and said,

'The dépôt is fully formed and in working order now. Leave the
command of it to the next officer, young Fleming, and, as you will not be
wanted at Aldershot till the spring drills commence, go personally and
search for intelligence.'

'Search—where—at the bottom of the sea?' said Goring, huskily.

'The yacht is said to have been sunk off the Maese; people at
Maeseland-Sluys or Rotterdam may know something about it. Get leave, go
there and inquire, you will be useless here, my dear Goring, and a burden to
yourself.'

'Right, I thank you,' he exclaimed, starting up; 'it is a good suggestion.'

'Is not anything better than sitting still a prey to wretchedness and one's
miserable thoughts?' she said, feelingly, as she referred, perhaps, to some
time or passages in her own past life.

Goring resolved to take measures for trying his too probably useless and
hopeless search at once. He promised faithfully to write to Laura Dalton
informing her of his progress, and of every fragment of intelligence he
could pick up—telegraphing to her in the first place. He pressed her hand,
kissed her on the forehead, and in another minute was in his saddle, and
galloping back to Aldershot at a break-neck speed—at a rate which would
certainly have made his nag remonstrate had it possessed the gift of speech.

He had wealth enough certainly to satisfy all the requirements—the

wishes of Sir Ranald Cheyne; but what did it avail him now? It would
neither restore the dead nor his own peace of mind. And now he could but
do, as he had done a hundred times before, softly open the clasp of her
engagement ring—her brother Ellon's ring—and gaze upon her features,
and the tiny lock of hair, while his heart was wrung within him.

He dashed off his application for leave, and had it at once despatched.
He commanded the inlying piquet that night, and, like an automaton, had to
go through the formula of parading it in line with forage caps, great-coats,
and side arms, and seeing the camp patrolled between retreat and half an
hour after the first post of tattoo.

Never would he forget the gloom of that few hours' duty, which seemed
to be done, not by himself, but some one else. He had a curious and
perplexing sense of a dual existence.

Would leave be refused him? That was not to be thought of.

He could not rest in his hut alone. Nearly all that night he wandered
about the silent camp like an evil or unquiet spirit, challenged again and
again by great-coated sentinels, who marvelled whether this officer who
passed their posts so often, and to all appearance so aimlessly, was
demented or not; and so, for hours and hours of a gloomy and inclement
night, he roved about, and heard the wind swaying the tops of the trees. He
shivered, and tried to collect his thoughts, but seemed to have none to
collect.

He tried to reason with himself, but, whatever idea suggested itself, one
was always uppermost—Alison drowned, Alison in the cruel and merciless
sea.

'I must get out of this place, do something, pull myself together, or I
shall go mad,' he muttered.

Was he dreaming? was all this sorrow a vision of the night that would
pass away?

Till the morning gun boomed from Gun Hill, and the sweet low reveille
began to steal out on the moistened air, he continued to wander thus, till,
drenched with the dews of night, he retired to his hut, and flinging himself
upon his bed, endeavoured to sleep for an hour or two—the sleep of utter
exhaustion.

From this happy state he was soon roused by an uproarious rattling at

the door of his room, and his subaltern, Frank Fleming, in undress uniform
—a heedless, noisy young fellow, and a second edition of Jerry Wilmot, but
neither revised nor corrected—came bustling in, shouting,

'The black ball is hoisted alone at headquarters. Thank God!'

'What do you mean?' asked Goring, in a weak voice, but angrily.

'Mean, man alive! don't you know? It means that the parade is
cancelled.'

'I had forgotten, but, till I dismiss the piquet, parades are nothing to me,'
said Goring, turning his face to the wall, and Fleming departed, fully
believing from the manner and appearance of his senior officer that 'he was
screwed tight as a drum, by Jove!—on duty, too! I wonder the fellow
doesn't cut Aldershot now—he's rich enough; can draw cheques galore; not
get them, like me, with strong paternal comments, and perhaps well-
deserved objurgations.'

And Bevil Goring lay there in his hut, hearing the incessant drums
beating and bugles sounding with a dazed feeling, as if he had been shot
into another world. With him it was—

'Oh, love for a year, a month, a day,

But alas for the love that loves alway!'

'What the devil is up with Goring?' said Fleming and others of the
dépôt; 'within the last few days he has looked older by ten years—worn and
worried—not at all like a man who has just come into a fine pot of money.'
 CHAPTER XIII.

THE JOURNEY.

At last he got his leave of absence and was off for London. Food
remained before him almost untasted or forgotten. He ate eventually, but
very sparingly, like one who knows it should be partaken of only for
strength to achieve some task that was to come.

'We no longer travel,' wrote Thackeray, with reference to some of the

improvements of the age; 'we are carried from place to place,' and Goring
was sensible of what another writer calls 'the tedious hurry of locomotion,'
as he was swept on his way to Harwich by the 7 p.m. train from the great
bustling and brilliantly lighted station at Liverpool Street.

There are few among us who have not undergone at some period of our
lives that intolerable fever of spirit, when setting out on some journey or
errand, the eventuality of which may be the life or death of some one loved
well and dearly. The heart and soul annihilating space, traverse the journey
in an instant; the helpless longing body, no matter at how swift a rate it may
be progressing, seems to stand stock-still, and the imposed inaction
becomes a physical torture that is to a certain extent merciful, since for the
time it partially paralyses the action of the brain.

All this, or something like it, was endured by Bevil Goring, while the
swift express tidal train sped on its way through the darkness of the night by
Witham with its long and almost solitary street; through Colchester, getting
but a glimpse of the winding valley overlooked by its old castle; by
Manningtree, Bradfield, and welcome to his ears was the cry of 'Harwich,'
and he became sensible of the cold sea-breeze as the train went clanking
into the station, on the tongue of land between the mouths of the Stour and
the Orwell; and a minute more saw him with his railway-rugs in a strap
hurrying after the porter who shouldered his portmanteau.

'What steamer, sir?' he asked.

'Rotterdam.'

'All right, sir—here you are.'

A vision of a red funnel amid the uncertain glow of many coloured

lights and lanterns, a bustle and the jarring of ropes and chains, with the
clank of donkey-engines and goods swung in mid-air from derricks,
ascending and descending, much shouting and swearing and hurrying to and
fro over slippery decks and piles of luggage covered by wet tarpaulins, a
bearded man on the gangway, lantern in hand, viewing the tickets and
passing the travellers on board; and then with a sigh of relief—almost
satisfaction—Goring found himself in the cabin of the steamer.

'State room or locker, sir?' asked the steward, touching his cap.

'A locker—there, that will do,' said Goring, as he threw his rugs on one
and looked round him. He saw 'Rotterdam' on everything, from the front of
the steward's cap to the glasses in the trays that swung between the beams,
and after a brandy and seltzer he lit a cigar and went on deck as the screw
began to revolve, the shore-warps fell plashing from the timber heads into
the water, and way was made upon the vessel.

There were but few passengers on board, and these few, as yet, seemed
disposed to be surly, suspicious, and to keep apart from each other in true
John Bull fashion.

A bright and beautiful moon shed its silvery light upon the smooth but
rippling water, and by half-past nine the clang of the Bell Buoy began to
grow fainter and fainter as the steamer headed seaward, and the many red
and green lights on the flat shore began to fade out and melt into the
uncertain haze.
 Long did Bevil Goring remain on deck alone, sunk in deep and sad
thoughts.

Was she indeed beneath those moonlit waves over which he was so
swiftly gliding. He shivered as he looked at them, and turned his eyes to the
star-studded sky; at last he wearied of the incessant repetitions from the
watch to the man at the wheel, 'starboard,' 'port,' 'hard-a-port, 'steady,' every
ten minutes or so when a vessel came near, and the tiresome iteration of
their orders only ceased when the fog-horns began to sound, when the
anchor was let go near a long line of lights that twinkled dimly through mist
upon the shore to the eastward, and Bevil Goring knew that he was now
close in on the Continent.

Midnight was long since past, and he went below; the weary steward
was still yawning in his pantry, when Bevil thought another brandy and
seltzer would do him no harm.

'How long may we be here?' he asked, impatiently.

'Till the fog lifts, sir, or day breaks, certainly.'

'Then we may not get to Rotterdam till midday?'

'Rotterdam, did you say, sir?' asked the steward, with a stare of surprise.

'Yes.'

'Why, sir, this is the Antwerp boat, and these lights on shore are
Flushing—we're in the Scheldt.'

Goring was exasperated on hearing this—a cause of delay and trouble

quite unexpected.

'I was told distinctly that this was the Rotterdam boat.'

'So it is, sir, in a way—it is the Rotterdam, bound for Antwerp. Where
was you going to?'
 Goring explained, on which the steward mixed himself a glass of grog,
laughed, and said it was a jolly mistake. Goring, however, failed to see the
jollity of it, and began to consult a railway guide to trace out his route from
Antwerp the moment he landed there, by Breda, to the city on the Maese.

While thus employed, he asked the steward if he had heard of a

collision some time ago near the mouth of that river, in which an English
yacht had suffered.

'Yes, sir,' replied the steward, 'but it wasn't quite off the mouth of the
Maese.'

'Where, then?'

'More to the south'ard—somewhere off the coast of Walchern.'

'It was Lord Cadbury's yacht.'

'Yes, sir, so I heard.'

'What happened?' asked Goring, making an effort to control himself and

conceal his agitation, which was totally unperceived by the steward, who
was collecting from the table all the glasses and decanters left by the
passengers, who were now rolled up in rugs, and stowed away in their
berths or on lockers.

'One of the craft was sunk.'

'Which?'

'Don't know, sir, precisely.'

'Were any drowned?'

'Some o' course, sir—a young woman, for one.'

'A young lady?' gasped Bevil.

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