“I’ve got a letter for you,” Lacey said. “The lady’s aunt and herself are cousins of mine more or less removed, and originally at home in the U. S. A. a generation ago. Her mother was an American. She didn’t know your name--Miss Hylda Maryon, I mean. I told her, but there wasn’t time to put it on.” He handed over the unaddressed envelope. David opened the letter, and read: “I have seen the papers. I do not understand what has happened, but I know that all is well. If it were not so, I would not go. That is the truth. Grateful I am, oh, believe me! So grateful that I do not yet know what is the return which I must make. But the return will be made. I hear of what has come to you--how easily I might have destroyed all! My thoughts blind me. You are great and good; you will know at least that I go because it is the only thing to do. I fly from the storm with a broken wing. Take now my promise to pay what I owe in the hour Fate wills--or in the hour of your need. You can trust him who brings this to you; he is a distant cousin of my own. Do not judge him by his odd and foolish words. They hide a good character, and he has a strong nature. He wants work to do. Can you give it? Farewell.” David put the letter in his pocket, a strange quietness about his heart. He scarcely realised what Lacey was saying. “Great girl that. Troubled about something in England, I guess. Going straight back.” David thanked him for the letter. Lacey became red in the face. He tried to say something, but failed. “Thee wishes to say something to me, friend?” asked David. “I’m full up; I can’t speak. But, say--” “I am going to the Palace now. Come back at noon if you will.” He wrung David’s hand in gratitude. “You’re going to do it. You’re going to do it. I see it. It’s a great game--like Abe Lincoln’s. Say, let me black your boots while you’re doing it, will you?” David pressed his hand. CHAPTER IX. THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN “To-day has come the fulfilment of my dream, Faith. I am given to my appointed task; I am set on a road of life in which there is no looking back. My dreams of the past are here begun in very truth and fact. When, in the night, I heard Uncle Benn calling, when in the Meeting-house voices said, ‘Come away, come away, and labour, thou art idle,’ I could hear my heart beat in the ardour to be off. Yet I knew not whither. Now I know. “Last night the Prince Pasha called me to his Council, made me adviser, confidant, as one who has the ear of his captain--after he had come to terms with me upon that which Uncle Benn left of land and gold. Think not that he tempted me.