Very early upon the following morning, almost before it was light, Alban entered the familiar study at "Five Gables" and read his patron's letter. It had been written the day after he himself returned from Poland, and had long awaited him, there in that great lonely house. He opened it almost as though it had been a message from the dead.
"I am leaving England to-day," the note went on, "and may be many months abroad. The unhappy death of Paul Boriskoff in the Schlusselburg will be already known to you, and will relieve you of any further anxiety upon his daughter's account. I have the assurance of the Minister of St. Petersburg that she will be released immediately and sent to "Five Gables" as I have wished. There I have made that provision for her future which I owe to my own past, and there she will live as your wife until the days of my exile are finished.
"You, Alban Kennedy, must henceforth be the agent of my fortunes. To you, in the name of humanity, I entrust the realization of those dreams which have endeared you to me and made you as my own son. If there be salvation for the outcasts of this city by such labors as you will now undertake upon their behalf, then let yours be the ministering hands, and the people's gratitude. I have lived too long in the kingdom of the money-changers either to accept your beliefs or to put them into practice. Go you out then as an Apostle in my name, that at my coming I may help you to reap a rich harvest.
"My agents will be able at all times to tell upon what sea or in what haven I am to be found. I go in quest of that peace which the world has denied to me. But I carry your name before others in my memory, and if I live, I will return to call you my son."
So the letter went on, so Alban read it as the dawn broke and the great city woke to the labors of the day.