"Yes, my liege?"
"I sent Valentine up to you with a desk. You were in that room, were you not?"
"Oh, yes."
"A small desk, that was once your mother's—it has a Bramah lock."
"I noticed that it had, and that it was locked."
"What have you done with it?"
"Valentine said you wished me to take particular care of it, so I locked it into my cabinet, where my will is, as you know, and where are most of my papers."
"Thank you; here is the key. You think you shall never forget where that desk is, Giles?"
"Never! such a thing is quite impossible."
"If I am gone when you return, you are to open that desk. You will find in it a letter which I wrote about three years ago; and if I have ever deserved well of you and yours, I charge you and I implore you to do your very best as regards what I have asked of you in that letter."