Mary felt the colour rush to her face.
"N—no! Not that I know of, Mr. Twitt," she said. "He has left a few papers which I promised him I would take to a friend of his, but I haven't even looked at them yet, and don't know to whom they are addressed. If I find anything I'll let you know."
"Ay, do so!" and Twitt rubbed his chin meditatively. "I wouldn't run agin' 'is wishes for anything if ser be I can carry 'em out. I considers as 'e wor a very fine sort—gentle as a lamb, an' grateful for all wot was done for 'im, an' I wants to be as friendly to 'im in 'is death as I wos in 'is life—ye understand?"
"Yes—I know—I quite understand," said Mary. "But there's plenty of time—-"
"Yes, there's plenty of time!" agreed Twitt. "But, lor,' if you could only know what a pain it gives me in the 'ed to work the portry out of it, ye wouldn't wonder at my preparin' ye, as 'twere. Onny I wishes ye just to understand that it'll all be done for love—an' no charge."
Mary thanked him smiling, yet with tears in her eyes, and he strolled away down the street in his usual slow and somewhat casual manner.
That evening,—the evening of the day on which all that was mortal of "old David" had been committed to the gentle ground, Mary unlocked the cupboard of which he had given her the key on the last night of his life, and took out the bulky packet it contained. She read the superscription with some surprise and uneasiness. It was addressed to a Mr. Bulteel, in a certain street near Chancery Lane, London. Now Mary had never been to London in her life. The very idea of going to that vast unknown metropolis half scared her, and she sat for some minutes, with the sealed packet in her lap, quite confused and troubled.
"Yet I made the promise!" she said to herself—"And I dare not break it! I must go. And I must not tell Angus anything about it—that's the worst part of all!"
She gazed wistfully at the packet,—anon she turned it over and over. It was sealed in several places—but the seal had no graven impress, the wax having merely been pressed with the finger.
"I must go!" she repeated. "I'm bound to deliver it myself to the man for whom it is intended. But what a journey it will be! To London!"