g when he again breathed the outer air,
and it was a gaunt figure which sat in the lee of the stockade one day
in May and took the package of letters brought from Fort Benton.

At last! Eva's first letter lay in his hand. He forgave her the long
silence. The winter had been unusually severe and to the irregularity of
the mails he ascribed his love's apparent defection. With trembling
fingers he opened the thin envelope. The letter had no heading.

_"I have told father of my promise to you. He refuses absolutely to
sanction it and declares I shall never marry an Englishman. I now
agree with father that it would be very unwise. I hate the army,
and you say you will never leave it. It is best that we understand
each other at once, and very fortunate that we agreed not to speak
of our engagement. I have not heard from you in three months, and
so I presume you are tired of it and as glad to break as I am."_

That was all. The dazed convalescent remembered that his letter was
mailed the very day that he went to the hospital, and his promise of
silence made it impossible to ask another to notify her of his
condition. Fate's cruelty bit deep. The heartlessness of Eva's dismissal
pierced his soul. Mechanically he took up a letter from his sister.

"_Dear brother Philip_," her letter began. _"We have written and
written. What has become of you these last months? Haven't you
received the solicitor's letters or mine, telling you of father's
sudden death, and the discovery that we are almost penniless--all
the fortune gone?"_

Danvers gasped, weakly, at the wealth of disaster. He had always
regarded his father as an exceptionally acute man of business. And
now.... The letters of which his sister Kate wrote had never reached
him. The mail service was wretched, he knew; but it seemed incredible
that such important letters should be lost. He turned to the other
envelopes just received. Yes, there were three from the family
solicitors, and one from Arthur Latimer. These from England had probably
lain at Fort Benton all winter. Presently he read on:

_"However, you no doubt have received them all by this time. I
write this, in haste, to ask you to meet me at Fort Benton by the
middle of June, as I shall come to America in time to take the
first boat leaving Bismarck. I shall have about a hundred pounds
when I start. I am determined to come to you."_