"You find me quite as clear in my thoughts and quite as well able to express them as usual, don't you, St. George?"
"Yes," answered the step-son, feeling, however, a little dismayed, for the wistful earnestness with which this was said was peculiar.
"If you should ever be asked," continued Daniel Mortimer, "you would be able to say that you had seen no signs of mental decay in me these last few months?"
"Don't disturb yourself, my dear fellow. I am as well as usual; better since my illness than I was for some time before. I quite hope to see you again; but in case I do not, I have a favour to ask of you."
The step-son assured him with all affection and fervour that he would attend to his wish, whatever it might be.
"I have never loved anything that breathed as I loved your mother," continued the old man, as if still appealing to him, "and you could hardly have been dearer to me if you had been my own."
"When you were in your own study this morning at the top of the house----"
"I sent Valentine up to you with a desk. You were in that room, were you not?"
"A small desk, that was once your mother's--it has a Bramah lock."
"I noticed that it had, and that it was locked."
"Valentine said you wished me to take particular care of it, so I locked it into my cabinet, where my will is, as you know, and where are most of my papers."
"Thank you; here is the key. You think you shall never forget where that desk is, Giles?"
"Never! such a thing is quite impossible."
"If I am gone when you return, you are to open that desk. You will find in it a letter which I wrote about three years ago; and if I have ever deserved well of you and yours, I charge you and I implore you to do your very best as regards what I have asked of you in that letter."
"The log's burn red; she lifts her head For sledge-bells tinkle and tinkle, O lightly swung. 'Youth was a pleasant morning, but ah! to think 'tis fled, Sae lang, lang syne,' quo' her mother, 'I, too, was young.'
"No guides there are but the North star, And the moaning forest tossing wild arms before, The maiden murmurs, 'O sweet were yon bells afar, And hark! hark! hark! for he cometh, he nears the door.'
"Swift north-lights show, and scatter and go. How can I meet him, and smile not, on this cold shore? Nay, I will call him, 'Come in from the night and the snow, And love, love, love in the wild wood, wander no more.'"