"Shall I send them, my lord?" asked the man.
"No," said York. "I'll take 'em. Put them up, singly, in a box. I'm going to send them through the post."
The man inclosed them in a couple of wooden boxes, and bowed Lord Auchester out.
York went home, and straight to a drawer in which he kept odd things, and after some amount of rummaging found a carte de visite portrait of himself. He sat down, lit a cigar, and, as neatly as he could, cut out the head of the portrait and fitted it in the locket; wrote on a slip of paper, "From Yorke," and laid them aside.
Then he took a sheet of paper, and dashed off in the charming scrawl which boys acquire at Eton—and never lose—the following note:
"Dear Fin.—Will you accept the inclosed and wear it for the sender's sake, and in remembrance of the many delightful times we have spent together? I thought of you nearly all the way home last night—it was awfully late!—and shall never forget how good you have always been to me. Think of me sometimes when you wear this trifle, and don't think too unkindly!"
"Yours,
"Yorke."
It was a foolish note. But he would be a wise man who could write a wise one under such circumstances. Of course, a wise one wouldn't have written at all; but Yorke was not famous for prudence.
He laid this note beside the beautiful diamond pendant, wrapped, like the locket, in tissue paper, and was putting them in their respective boxes when Fleming came in.