"Listen, dear," she said at last, and James bent down. "I'm going to die, James. Try not to be too sorry about it. It is all for the best ... Dearest, there is something I want you to do for me; you know how I have always trusted you, and depended on you—well, perhaps you don't know, but I have ... James, I want you to look out for Harry. He needs it now, and he will need it a great deal more later. You will see what I mean, as you grow up. He is not made like you; he will need some one to look after him. Can you promise me that you will do this?"
"Yes," whispered James.
His mother sighed gently, as though with relief. "Now kiss me, dear," she said, and then, almost inaudibly, "It is good to leave some one I can trust." Then she closed her eyes, for the last time.
James never repeated those words of his mother to any human being, as long as he lived, not even to Harry. It would be too much to say that they were never absent from his thoughts, for in truth he thought but seldom of them, after the first few days. But in some compelling though intangible way he realized, as he stood there by his mother's death-bed, that he had accepted a trust from which nothing but death would release him.
The doctor returned to the side of the dying woman. Swiftly and quietly Miss Garver placed a hand on the shoulder of each of the two boys and led them from the room. Edith Wimbourne slept, and her sleep slowly passed into death.
The man in the chair never moved.
CHAPTER II
AUNTS
Till Miss Garver had seen Harry and James tucked away in their beds again and had put out the light and left their room, both the boys maintained the same outward composure that they had shown throughout the experiences of the night. But once left alone in the quiet of their darkened bedroom, no further ordeal ahead of them to inspire restraint—for they knew perfectly well by this time that their mother must be dead—they gave way entirely to their natural grief and spent what they both remembered afterward as the wretchedest night of their lives.