"Do not think we have been idle here in your cause, for I myself went to
Earl Fitzwilliam and told him the whole story, and how you had come to
help Tom Doane that night. How do I know of it all? Because I have seen a
letter from Tom Doane. Well, the Earl promised to lay your case before
the King himself, and to speak for you with good eager entreaty. And so,
it may be, by next time I write, there will go good news to you,
and--will you then come back, dear Cousin Dick?

"And now I want to tell you what I know, and what you do not know. Tom
Doane had a wife in Mablethorpe. He married her when she was but
sixteen--a child. But she was afraid of her father's anger, and her
husband soon after went abroad, became one of Prince Charlie's men, and
she's never seen him since. She never really loved him, but she never
forgot that she was his wife; and she always dreaded his coming back; as
well she might, for you see what happened when he did come. I pitied her,
dear Cousin Dick, with all my heart; and when Tom Doane died on the field
of battle in Holland last year, I wept with her and prayed for her. And
you would have wept too, man though you are, if you had seen how grateful
she was that he died in honourable fighting and not in a smuggler's cave
at Theddlethorpe. She blessed you for that, and she never ceases to work
with me for the King's pardon for you.

"There is no more to say now, dear Cousin Dick, save that I would have
you know I think of you with great desire of heart for your well-being,
and I pray God for your safe return some day to the good country which,
pardoning you, will cast you out no more.

"I am, dear Cousin Dick,

"Thy most affectionate Cousin,