'Are you going back to Australia again?'
'I don't know.'
'Perhaps you wish to return here?'
'Not at all. I never will, until things are on a different footing between myself and my brother. He has insulted me openly in this neighbourhood; even daring to hint that I have plotted to get rid of his son! No, I came to get something I want out of my locked cupboard. I conclude you will have no objection to my doing this?'
'Certainly not'; and Agatha rose and led him to the study. She left him there, but as she turned away she heard him quietly lock the door behind her; and again she felt a nervous thrill run through her, as she wondered if he were an impostor after all.
Half an hour later he came back to her in the drawing-room.
'I am going to do a foolish thing,' he said; 'I cannot tell what impels me to do it, but the very thing I was going to take away I am deliberately going to leave here with you.'
'I would rather you took it away, whatever it is,' Agatha said hastily.
'It will not be in your way. I see you are careful tenants, and as long as you keep my wishes respected about that locked cupboard, it will be safe; far safer than if I carried it about with me, as I thought of doing. If you wish to correspond with me at any time, my agents in London will forward anything to me. I will give you their card. One thing I am going to leave with you, and this shows the confidence I place in you. It is the secret of opening that cupboard. I have sealed the directions up in this envelope; and I want you to give me your solemn promise that you will keep it as I give it to you, in trust for my son. When he returns, he will be sure to find his way down here. Be kind to him, and give him the envelope. I have never confided to him the secret of the cupboard, and I wish him to open it as soon as he arrives. It is most important he should.
'You may wonder at my trusting a comparative stranger with such a charge, but I am a good reader of faces, and I do not think you will fail me. Promise me you will keep this envelope from the knowledge of any one, even from your sisters; and promise me you will do what I desire about it!'