"No," he went on, meditatively, "no difference. Well, I want you to burn two documents for me, lest they fall into the wrong hands—as they might before these good folk go back kirkward again."
He directed me with his finger, at the same time handing me a key he wore upon his watch-chain.
"Even my poor mother up there," he said, pointing to the room above, "has never set eyes on what I am going to show you. It is weak of me; I ought not to do it, doctor, but I will not deny that it is some comfort to set myselt right with one human soul before I go."
I took out of a little drawer in a bureau a miniature, a bundle of letters, and a broadly folded legal-looking document.
I offered them to Roger, but he waved them away.
"I do not want to look upon them—they are here!" He touched his forehead. "And one of them is here!" He laid his hand on his heart with that freedom of gesture which often comes to the dying, especially to those who have repressed themselves all their lives.
I looked down at the miniature and saw the picture of a girl, very pretty, beautiful indeed, but with that width between the eyes which, in fair women, gives a double look.
"Ailie, my brother's wife!" he said, in answer to my glance. "These are her letters. Open them one by one and burn them."
I did as he bade me, throwing my eyes out of focus so that I might not read a word. But out of one fluttered a pressed flower. It was fixed on a card with a little lock of yellow hair arranged about it for a frame, fresh and crisp. And as I picked it up I could not help catching the prettily printed words:
"TO DARLING ROGER, FROM HIS OWN AILIE."