Yes, certainly David would go. He made a mental reservation that he would sail, without returning to London, and then make a clean breast of his affairs by letter to his mother. She had improved in health during the winter, and he thought his information would be received by her with more equanimity than it would have been earlier. Moreover, she had broached the subject of marriage to him more than once, but always in one of her most worldly moods, when he shrank from hearing Cassandra spoken of as he knew she would be--when he could not hear her discussed, nor reply with calmness to such questions as he knew must ensue. David had little time to brood over his peculiar difficulty, as his short journey was full of business interest and new experiences. Yet the Cornish hills awoke in him a still greater eagerness for the mountains of his dreams, and, after securing his passage, he went to his hotel to prepare the letter to his mother. It is marvellous what trivial events alter destinies. In this instance it was the yapping of a small dog which changed David's plans, and finally sent him to South Africa instead of America. While paying his bill at the hotel, a telegram was handed him, which he tore open as the clerk was counting out his change. He still held in his hand the letter to his mother which he was on the point of dropping in the letter-box at his elbow. Instead, he thrust it in his pocket, along with the crushed telegram, and, taking a cab, hastened to the steamship offices to cancel his date for sailing. The message read: "Return with all speed to London. Mr. Stretton lying in the hospital with a fractured skull." Thus it was that Lady Tredwell's pet spaniel, old and vicious, yapping at the heels of Mr. Stretton's restive horse, while my lady's maid--who should have been leading him out for an airing--was absorbed in listening to the compliments of one of the park guards, played so dire a part in the affairs of David Thryng. CHAPTER XXVII IN WHICH THE OLD DOCTOR AND LITTLE HOYLE COME BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS Cassandra, seated on the great hanging rock before her cabin, watched the sunrise where David had so often stood and waited for the dawn during his winter there alone. This morning the mists obscured the valleys and the base of the mountains, while the sky and the whole earth glowed with warm rose color. Presently she rose and walked with lifted head into the cabin, and prepared to light a fire on the hearth. In the canvas room the bed was made smoothly, as she had made it the morning David left. No one had slept in it since, although Cassandra spent most of her days there. Everything he had used was carefully kept as he had left it. His microscope, covered from dust, stood with the last specimen still under the lens. A book they were reading together lay on the corner shelf, with the mark still in the place where they had read last.