"You shall never see him more, if I can help it," returned my tutor, with unusual energy. "Yes, I think I can promise that you never shall." I well knew that so cautious a man as Mr. Long would not have said so much without full warrant; it was evident to me at once that he had heard from Mr. Gerard all that had passed between that gentleman and the baronet in the drawing-room, and was now determined to act with vigour in Marmaduke's behalf. Perhaps the coincidence of the lad's dream with what had in fact occurred, may have helped my tutor's decision, but now that he had once passed his word, I felt sure that he would stand by Marmaduke to the last.
The sick boy seemed to feel this too, for he uttered many expressions of gratitude and contentment, while he kept fast hold of his new protector's hand.
"But mind, Marmaduke, you must now make haste and get well, and not give way to despondency about yourself. I am going for the doctor, who is sleeping in the house, and whom I promised to call as soon as you awoke; and, Peter, don't you let him talk too much. For a boy like that to talk of death," added Mr. Long, aloud, as he drew on his slippers, "is to go half-way to meet it."
Marmaduke smiled feebly at this remark of his unconscious tutor's, and when he had left the room, observed, "There is no need of any doctors; this is my death-bed, Meredith, I know."
"Marmaduke," replied I, gravely, "I will not listen to such dreadful things; it is wrong, it is wicked, it will do you harm."
"No, Peter, there is nothing dreadful in the thing I mean, and it seems to soothe me when I speak of it. Since I have been ill, I have had a sign that tells me I must go. We shall not grow up together to be friends through life, as we had planned. I shall watch you perhaps--I hope I shall--and be happy in your happiness, but you will soon forget <i>me</i>. There will be a thousand things for you to think of; there have been such even now for you while <i>I</i>--it seems hard, does it not, Peter, that I should have grown up under the shadow of that man, and never felt the Sunshine? They say that boyhood is the blithest time of life, but I have never been a boy. I think I could almost tell him, if he stood here now, how he has poisoned my young life, and sent me to the grave without one pleasant memory to moisten my dying eyes. Yes, my friend, dying. I have seen a vision in the night far too sweet and fear not to have been sent from heaven itself. If there indeed be angels, such was she. They say the Heaths have always ghastly warnings when their hour is come, but this was surely a gentle messenger. I close my eyes and see that smile once more."