The weighty words, spoken as they were in a tone of blended affection and authority, found a fitting echo in his wife’s breast. She stood for a moment between her husband and her son, looking from the one to the other. Then she dried her tears, and replied in a tone of gentle dignity and resignation-- “Yes, I see. You are right and I was wrong. It is his duty to go, and he must go. But,” she continued, turning to Alan with the sudden light of a new hope in her eyes, “if I bid you ‘God-speed,’ my son, you will promise one thing, won’t you?” “Yes, mother, I will--whatever it is.” “Then promise me that if it shall be proved possible for you to live in happiness as well as in honour, you will come back.” “Yes,” he replied, smiling gravely as he once more took her outstretched hands. “I will promise that as gladly as I would promise to enter Heaven if I saw the gates open before me.” “Then you shall go, and God go with you and bring you back in safety to us!” she said. Then, turning abruptly, she went out of the room, leaving them both wondering at her words. This took place early on the morning of the 21st of May. An hour later the President had applied in Alan’s name for the permission of the Council for him to select a crew of twenty volunteers and to take the _Avenger_ to Europe on his mission to the warring peoples and to proclaim peace on earth and breathing space for humanity to prepare for its end. But then a new difficulty presented itself. Alexis, in spite of all Alan’s remonstrances to the contrary, declared that he should never leave Aeria without him. “I have shared in your exile and your return,” he said, in answer to all arguments, “and, by the honour of the Golden Wings, I swear that I will either go with you now or you shall see me fall dead the moment that you leave the earth!” This was the only oath that ever was heard upon the lips of an Aerian, and it was irrevocable, so, as there was no choice, Alan was forced to consent, and Alexis made ready to bid a last farewell to Aeria and all its dear associations. CHAPTER XXVII. ALMA SPEAKS. THAT night Alan, with his heart too full even for the society of his own home, went out of the city a little before midnight and walked down towards the western shore of the lake, where there still stood the same grove of palms in which, more than a hundred and thirty years before, Natasha and Richard Arnold had plighted their despairing troth and under the shadow of what threatened to be an eternal separation spoken the first words of love that had ever passed their lips. It was not altogether accident that guided his steps in this direction, for all day he had been reviewing the strange chain of events which united the fate of his ancestors with his own, and it was natural that the most romantic episode in their lives should inspire him with a desire to see the scene of it once more.