senator set his heart leaping and
brought him to his knees in gratitude and thanksgiving. On returning one
afternoon to the mean lodging into which he had moved to save his money,
he found a telegram from Stanton and he tore it open trembling between
hope and fear.

"Have arranged to leave for Tampa with you Monday, at midnight" it read.
"Call for me at ten o'clock same evening.--STANTON."

Arkwright read the message three times. There was a heavy, suffocating
pressure at his heart as though it had ceased beating. He sank back
limply upon the edge of his bed and clutching the piece of paper in his
two hands spoke the words aloud triumphantly as though to assure himself
that they were true. Then a flood of unspeakable relief, of happiness
and gratitude, swept over him, and he turned and slipped to the floor,
burying his face in the pillow, and wept out his thanks upon his knees.

A man so deeply immersed in public affairs as was Stanton and with
such a multiplicity of personal interests, could not prepare to absent
himself for a month without his intention becoming known, and on the
day when he was to start for Tampa the morning newspapers proclaimed the
fact that he was about to visit Cuba. They gave to his mission all
the importance and display that Arkwright had foretold. Some of the
newspapers stated that he was going as a special commissioner of the
President to study and report; others that he was acting in behalf
of the Cuban legation in Washington and had plenipotentiary powers.
Opposition organs suggested that he was acting in the interests of
the sugar trust, and his own particular organ declared that it was his
intention to free Cuba at the risk of his own freedom, safety, and even
life.

The Spanish minister in Washington sent a cable for publication to
Madrid, stating that a distinguished American statesman was about
to visit Cuba, to investigate, and, later, to deny the truth of the
disgraceful libels published concerning the Spanish officials on the
island by the papers of the United States. At the same time he cabled
in cipher to the captain-general in Havana to see that the distinguished
statesman was closely spied upon from the moment of his arrival until
his departure, and to place on the "suspect" list all Americans and
Cubans who ventured to give him any information.

The afternoon papers enlarged on the importance of the visit and on the
good that would surely come of it. They told that Senator