“But that’s not the end,” Albemarle checked him. “No sooner had I appointed this other than he, too, fell sick of the plague, and died a week ago. I have already found another suitable man--no easy matter in these days--and I had resolved to appoint him to-morrow to the vacant office. But, if ye’re not afraid that the plague is bound up with this commission, it’s at your disposal, and it shall be made out to you at once.” Holles was gasping for breath. “You ... you mean that ... that I am to have the command, after all!” It was incredible. He dared not believe it. “That is what I have said. The commission is ...” Albemarle broke off suddenly, and fell back before him. “What ails you man? You’re white as a ghost. Ye’re not ill?” And he lugged out a handkerchief that flung a reek of myrrh and ginger on the air, leaving Holles no single doubt of the thing his grace was fearing. Albemarle imagined that the plague which, as he had said, seemed bound up with this commission, was already besetting the man upon whom he now proposed to bestow it. The humour of it took Holles sharply, and his laugh rang out further to startle the Duke. “There’s no need for electuaries against me,” he assured his grace. “I am certified in health and carry no infection. I left Bunhill Fields this morning.” “What?” Albemarle was astounded. “D’ye mean ye’ve had the plague?” “That is the whole reason of my being here. I am a safe man now. And I came in answer to your proclamation asking for safe men.” Albemarle continued to stare at him in deepening amazement. “So that is what brought you?” he said at last, when full understanding came to him. “But for that I certainly should never have come.” “Gad!” said Albemarle, and he repeated the ejaculation with a laugh, for he found the situation curious enough to be amusing. “Gad! The ways of Chance!” “Chance!” echoed Holles, suddenly very sober, realizing how this sudden, unexpected turn of Fortune’s wheel had changed the whole complexion of his life. “Almost it seems that Chance has stood my friend at last, though it has waited until I had touched the very bottom of misfortune. But for your proclamation, and but for Mrs. Quinn, too, I should have been Fortune’s fool again over the matter of this commission. It would have been here waiting for me, and I should never have known. The very malice by which Mrs. Quinn sought to do me disservice has turned to my benefit. For had she told your messenger the truth--that I had vanished and that she had no knowledge of my whereabouts--you would never have traced me just then, and you would never have waited that fortnight. Thus all might have been changed.” He paused, lost in a wonder that Albemarle did not share.