"I am more than pleased, Margaret. I am not sad, but only grieved over the coming loss out of my life of simple days and those I love, because soon, very soon, I go away to a life of courts and idle ceremonies, and perhaps of strife and war."
For a moment or two neither spoke. The fading light seemed somehow to the girl to fit her sense of the gravity of this announcement of a vast loss out of life. Her eyes filled as she looked up.
"Oh, why dost thou go? Is not love and reverence and hearts that thank thee—oh, are not these enough? Why dost thou go?"
"You, dear, who know me will understand when I answer with one word—duty."
"I am answered," she said, but the tears ran down her cheeks.
"René will some day tell you more, indeed, all; and you will know why I must leave you." Then, saying no more, he took up the oars and pulled into the shore. René drew up the boat.
"Will you go out with me now, Margaret?"
"Not this evening, René," she said, and went slowly up to the house.
On one of these later August days, Mr. Hammond, the English minister, at his house in the country was pleased, being about to return home, to ask the company of Mr. Wolcott of the Treasury. There were no other guests, and after dinner the minister, to add zest to his dessert, handed to Wolcott the now famous intercepted Despatch No. 10, sent back by Lord Grenville after its capture, to make still further mischief. Having been told the story of the wanderings of this fateful document, the Secretary read it with amazement, and understood at once that it was meant by Hammond to injure Randolph, whose dislike of the Jay treaty and what it yielded to England was well known in London. Much disturbed by what he gathered, Wolcott took away the long document, agreeing to give a certified copy to Hammond, who, having been recalled, was well pleased to wing this Parthian arrow.
The next day Wolcott showed it to his colleagues, Pickering and the Attorney-General. As it seemed to them serious, they sent an urgent message to the President, which brought back the weary man from his rest at Mount Vernon. On his return, the President, despite Randolph's desire for further delay, called a cabinet meeting, and with a strong remonstrance against the provision clause which yielded the hated rights of search, decided to ratify the treaty with England.