their relation in every usual meaning--who, too frail and broken to come
to him now, waited for him by the old hearthstone. And so Soolsby, in
his own way, made him understand; for who knew them both better than this
old man, who had shared in David's destiny since the fatal day when Lord
Eglington had married Mercy Claridge in secret, had set in motion a long
line of tragic happenings?

"Ay, she would have come, she would have come," Soolsby answered, "but
she was not fit for the journey, and there was little time, my lord."

"Why did thee come, Soolsby? Only to welcome me back?"

"I come to bring you back to England, to your duty there, my lord."

The first time Soolsby had used the words "my lord," David had scarcely
noticed it, but its repetition struck him strangely.

"Here, sometimes they call me Pasha and Saadat, but I am not 'my lord,'"
he said.

"Ay, but you are my lord, Egyptian, as sure as I've kept my word to you
that I'd drink no more, ay, on my sacred honour. So you are my lord; you
are Lord Eglington, my lord."

David stood rigid and almost unblinking as Soolsby told his tale,
beginning with the story of Eglington's death, and going back all the
years to the day of Mercy Claridge's marriage.

"And him that never was Lord Eglington, your own father's son, is dead
and gone, my lord; and you are come into your rights at last." This was