“Odd!” repeated the steward, somewhat crustily.  “How do you mean—­odd?”

“They was the very last words my Uncle Benjamin ever uttered in this life,” said Mrs. Silk, with dramatic impressiveness.

The steward was silent, then, with the ominous precedent of Uncle Benjamin before him, he began to talk until scores of words stood between himself and a similar ending.

“Teddy asked to be remembered to you as ’e went off this morning,” said Mrs. Silk, pausing in her labours at the grate.

“I’m much obliged,” muttered the invalid.

“He didn’t ’ave time to come in,” pursued the widow.  “You can ’ardly believe what a lot ’e thinks of you, Mr. Wilks.  The last words he said to me was, ‘Let me know at once if there’s any change.’”

Mr. Wilks distinctly felt a cold, clammy sensation down his spine and little quivering thrills ran up and down his legs.  He glared indignantly at the back of the industrious Mrs. Silk.

“Teddy’s very fond of you,” continued the unconscious woman.  “I s’pose it’s not ’aving a father, but he seems to me to think more of you than any-body else in the wide, wide world.  I get quite jealous sometimes.  Only the other day I said to ’im, joking like, ’Well, you’d better go and live with ’im if you’re so fond of ‘im,’ I said.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed Mr. Wilks, uneasily.

“You’ll never guess what ’e said then,” said Mrs. Silk dropping her dustpan and brush and gazing at the hearth.

“Said ’e couldn’t leave you, I s’pose,” guessed the steward, gruffly.

“Well, now,” exclaimed Mrs. Silk, clapping her hands, “if you ’aven’t nearly guessed it.  Well, there!  I never did!  I wouldn’t ’ave told you for anything if you ’adn’t said that.  The exact words what ’e did say was, ‘Not without you, mother.’”

Mr. Wilks closed his eyes with a snap and his heart turned to water.  He held his breath and ran-sacked his brain in vain for a reply which should ignore the inner meaning of the fatal words.  Something careless and jocular he wanted, combined with a voice which should be perfectly under control.  Failing these things, he kept his eyes closed, and, very wide-awake indeed, feigned sleep.  He slept straight away from eleven o’clock in the morning until Edward Silk came in at seven o’clock in the evening.

“I feel like a new man,” he said, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

“I don’t see no change in your appearance,” said the comforting youth.

“‘E’s much better,” declared his mother.  “That’s what comes o’ good nursing; some nurses would ’ave woke ’im up to take food, but I just let ’im sleep on.  People don’t feel hunger while they’re asleep.”

She busied herself over the preparation of a basin of arrowroot, and the steward, despite his distaste for this dish, devoured it in a twinkling.  Beef-tea and a glass of milk in addition failed to take more than the edge off his appetite.