However, the tutor had had some little practice before now in doing what he did not like. With a sigh and a shiver, therefore, he flung aside his blankets and proceeded to break the ice literally, and take his bath. After that he felt decidedly better, and with the help of a steady ten minutes grind at the dumb-bells, he succeeded in pulling himself together.
He had reached this stage in his toilet when a knock came at the door.
"Come in, Raffles," said Mr Armstrong, beginning to see some prospect of a shave after all.
It was not Raffles, but Dr Brandram, equipped for the road.
"I'm off, Armstrong," said he. "I'd ask you to come and drive me, only I think you are wanted here. See the boy eats enough and doesn't mope. You must amuse him if you can. You understand what I told you last night was not for him. By the way,"--here the doctor held out a sealed packet--"this was lying on the old man's table last night. It was probably to give it to you that he sent for you in the afternoon, and then forgot it. Well, good-bye. I shall come to-morrow if the roads are passable. I only hope, for my sake, all this will not make any difference to your remaining at Maxfield."
Mr Armstrong finished his toilet leisurely, and then proceeded to examine the packet.
It was a large envelope, addressed, "Frank Armstrong, Esquire," in the old man's quavering hand.
Within was another envelope, firmly sealed, on which the same hand had written these words--
"_To be given unopened into the hands of Roger Ingleton, junior, on his twentieth birthday_."
The effort of writing those few words had evidently been almost more than the writer could accomplish, for towards the end the letters became almost illegible, and the words were huddled in a heap at the corner of the paper. The sealing, too, to judge from the straggling blots of wax all over and the ineffective marks of the seal, must have been the labour of a painful morning to the feeble, half-blind old man.
To the tutor, however, as he held the missive in his hand, and looked at it with the reverence one feels for a token from the dead, it seemed to make one or two things tolerably clear.
First, that the contents, whatever they were, were secret and important, else the old man would never have taken upon himself a labour he could so easily have devolved upon another. Secondly, that this old man, rightly or wrongly, regarded Frank Armstrong as a man to be trusted, and contemplated that a year hence he would occupy the same position with regard to the heir of Maxfield as he did now.