"I don't know, Honour. I have fancied of late that I may not be here very long."
"Heaven grant you may be mistaken, sir!" was the impulsive aspiration of the girl: "for this child's sake!"
Her master looked at her, struck by the tone of terror, as much as by the words. "Why for his sake? Should anything happen to me, Honour, you must all take the greater care of him. Your mistress; you; all of you."
An impulse came over Honour to speak out somewhat of her thoughts; one of those strange impulses that bear the will with them as a torrent not to be controlled.
"Sir, for the love of mercy--and may God forgive me for saying it, and may you forgive me!--if you fear that you will be taken from us, don't leave this child in the power of Mrs. St. John!"
"Honour!"
"I know; I know, sir; I am forgetting myself; I am saying what I have no right to say; but the child is dearer to me than any living thing, and I hope you'll overlook my presumption for his sake. Leave him in the power of anybody else in the world, but don't leave him to Mrs. St. John."
"Mrs. St. John is fond of him."
"No, sir, she is the contrary. She tries to like him, but she can't. And if you were gone, there'd no longer be a motive--as I believe--for her seeming to do so. I think--I think"--and Honour lowered her voice beseechingly--"that she might become cruel to him in time."
Bold words. George St. John did not check them, as perhaps he ought to have done; rather, he seemed to take them to him and ponder over their meaning.