"I think I have to write my name at the bottom first, I know father did. Give me the pen."
Dudley handed it, and wondered why Roy's fingers shook so as he signed his name.
"No, wait a moment. I want to write something myself."
And then in a large scrawl at the bottom of the paper Roy wrote--
"This boy died before he had time to serve the Queen, he tried to serve God, and he tried to do good to some people, only they turned out mistakes. He hopes the Queen will forgive him; he knows God will. Amen."
"Yes, let me drop some sealing wax; fetch a candle!"
Dudley was longing to do this part himself, but he generously said nothing, and presented Roy with a brass button out of his pocket, to stamp on the hot wax.
A lot of sealing wax was dropped indiscriminately all over the paper, and then old nurse appeared on the scene to order Dudley off.
"You've been far too long with him already, to my mind," she said; "if Miss Bertram wasn't beside herself she would never have given you permission at all; he ought to have been kept extra quiet, and he's worked himself all in a fever again." She put Roy gently back on his pillows, and did not notice in her short-sightedness the roll of paper being stuffed under his pillow. Dudley's spirits sank to zero, now he was about to be dismissed.
"Good-bye, Roy, ask to see me again, won't you?"
"I'll talk about it to-morrow," he said, faintly.
And Dudley crept out of the room feeling more forlorn and wretched than ever.
It was all over; two doctors had been closetted in the bedroom for a very long time, and then Dudley and Rob, sitting on the garden steps, were told that everything had been successfully carried out, and Roy was as well and better than had been expected.
"I never saw such fortitude and calm self-control in my life," said Miss Bertram to her mother; "it was unnatural for a child of his age!"
"He is a true Bertram in spirit," said the grandmother, proudly; then she added with a sigh, "but, alas, not in body."
"Nurse," said Dudley that night as he was creeping into bed under her charge; "is Roy going to die?"
"I hope not," answered nurse, a little tearfully. "Doctor Grant says he'll make a good recovery, but he whispered himself to me--Master Roy did just before he took the sleeping draught--'Nurse I'll have my leg buried with me!' he says."