“Or dying—thank you,” said the boy. “You are something like a consoler. I know it’s a shame to bore you about it, but I’ve no one else to talk to.”
“I’d give my right hand to help you, old fellow,” said the tutor; “but, as you say, I’m absolutely no use in a case like this.”
“I know. Come upstairs and play something.”
“By the way,” said the tutor, as they reached the study, “I’ve something to give you. You may as well have it now.”
And he went to his desk and took out an envelope.
“It will explain itself,” said he, handing it to the boy.
He sat down at the piano, and wandered over the keys, while Roger, too full of his own cares to give much heed to the missive in his hands, walked over to the window and looked out across the park. The afternoon sun was glancing across the woods, and gleaming far away on the sea. “If only she would share it with me,” thought he to himself, “how proud I should be of the dear old place. But what good is it all to me if she condemns me to possess it all myself?”
Then with a sigh he turned his back on the scene, and let his eyes fall on the letter.
He started as he recognised the dead hand of his father in the inscription—
“To be given unopened into the hands of Roger Ingleton junior, on his twentieth birthday.”