When I left here, nothing seemed so
hopeless as the thought that a time of justice might come. I cut myself off
even from news. I have lived without a name and without a future."
"Maybe for the best," Hagan declared cheerfully. "Remember that it's but
twelve months ago since your pardon was signed, and you'd have done ill to
have found your way back before then.--But what about this mission you
spoke of?"
Sir Denis looked down the table. Of servants there was only old Timothy at
the sideboard, and of those who were gathered around his board there was
not one whom he could doubt.
"I will tell you about that," he promised, leaning a little forward. "You
have read of the documents and the famous stolen letter which were supposed
to have been brought over to England in a certain trunk, protected by the
seal of a neutral country?"
"Why, sure!" Michael Dilwyn murmured under his breath. "The box was to have
been opened at Downing Street, but one heard nothing more of it."
"The stolen letter," Hagan remarked, "was supposed to have been indiscreet
enough to have brought about the ruin of a great man in America."
Sir Denis nodded.
"You've got the story all right," he said. "Well, those papers never were
in that trunk.
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