With eyes still smarting, he leapt up the last few steps to the little landing which he shared with no one else. Opening the door he turned the switch of the lamp on the writing-table which stood at a right angle to the deep-eaved window.
Then he shut the door and locked it, and, after a moment of indecision, walked across to the book-case which filled up the space between the fireplace and the inner wall of the long, rafted room.
He did not feel in the mood to go to bed, and idly he let his eyes run over the long rows of books which he had read, in the long ago, again and again, for like most lonely boys he had been a great reader. They were a good selection, partly his mother's, partly his own, partly Lord St. Amant's. He knew well enough—he had always known, albeit the knowledge gave him no pleasure, that he had owed a great deal, as boy and man, to his mother's old friend. Lord St. Amant had really fine taste. It was he who had made Oliver read Keats, Blake, Byron, Poe, among poets; he who had actually given him Wuthering Heights, Vanity Fair, The Three Musketeers, Ali Baba of Ispahan. There they were all together.
He had not taken his books with him when he had first gone to Mexico, for he had not meant to stay there. But at last he had written home to a great London bookseller and ordered fresh copies of all his old books at home. The bookseller had naturally chosen good editions, in some cases rare first editions. But those volumes had never been read, as some of these had been read, over and over and over again.
But now, to-night, he did not feel as if he could commune with any comfort even with one of these comfortable, unexacting friends. He felt too restless, too vividly alive. So suddenly he turned away from the bookcase, and looked about him. A large French box-bed had taken the place of the narrow, old-fashioned bedstead of his youth; and his mother had had moved up to this room a narrow writing-table from the study on the ground floor which no one ever used.
He walked over to that writing-table now, and sat down. On it, close to his left hand, stood a large despatch-box. He opened and took out of it a square sheet of paper on which was embossed his Mexican address. Drawing two lines across that address, and putting in the present date, September 19th, he waited, his pen poised in his hand for a full minute.
Then he began writing rather quickly, and this is what he wrote:—
"My dear Laura,—Godfrey suggests that I should act as your trustee, in succession to Mr. Blackmore. Am I to understand that this suggestion has your approval? If yes, I will of course consent to act. But please do not think I shall be offended if you decide otherwise. You may prefer some woman of your acquaintance. Women, whatever Godfrey may tell you, make excellent men of business. They are, if anything, over-prudent, over-cautious where money is concerned; but that is a very good fault in a trustee."
His handwriting was small and clear, but he had left large spaces between the lines, and now he was at the end of the sheet of paper. There was just room for another sentence and his signature. He waited, hesitating and of two minds, till the ink was dry, and then he began again, close to the bottom of the sheet:—
"Before we meet again I wish to say one further thing."