ave thanked you for it! But I knew
not what to say; my lips were closed. And just then shots were fired,
and we saw the coast-guards' lights. Then came Lancy Doane stumbling
down the banks, and our parting--our parting. Your bitter laugh as you
left me has rung in my ears ever since.

"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,

"FANNY."

"Afterword--Dear Dick, my heart bursts for joy. Enclosed here is thy
pardon, sent by the good Earl Fitzwilliam last night. I could serve him
on my knees for ever. Dick, she that was Tom Doane's wife, she loves
thee. Wilt thou not come back to her?

"In truth, she always loved thee. She was thy cousin; she is thy Fanny.
Now thou knowest all."

End of Project Gutenberg's There is Sorrow On The Sea, by Gilbert Parker