All the same—­we said it to ourselves afterwards, though not at the time—­there was an atmosphere of mystery about Mr. Gilverthwaite.  He made no acquaintance in the town.  He was never seen in even brief conversation with any of the men that hung about the pier, on the walls, or by the shipping.  He never visited the inns, nor brought anybody in to drink and smoke with him.  And until the last days of his lodging with us he never received a letter.

A letter and the end of things came all at once.  His stay had lengthened beyond the month he had first spoken of.  It was in the seventh week of his coming that he came home to his dinner one June evening, complaining to my mother of having got a great wetting in a sudden storm that had come on that afternoon while he was away out in the country, and next morning he was in bed with a bad pain in his chest, and not over well able to talk.  My mother kept him in his bed and began to doctor him; that day, about noon, came for him the first and only letter he ever had while he was with us—­a letter that came in a registered envelope.  The servant-maid took it up to him when it was delivered, and she said later that he started a bit when he saw it.  But he said nothing about it to my mother during that afternoon, nor indeed to me, specifically, when, later on, he sent for me to go up to his room.  All the same, having heard of what he had got, I felt sure that it was because of it that, when I went in to him, he beckoned me first to close the door on us and then to come close to his side as he lay propped on his pillow.

“Private, my lad!” he whispered hoarsely.  “There’s a word I have for you in private!”

CHAPTER II

THE MIDNIGHT MISSION

Before he said a word more, I knew that Mr. Gilverthwaite was very ill—­much worse, I fancied, than my mother had any notion of.  It was evidently hard work for him to get his breath, and the veins in his temples and forehead swelled out, big and black, with the effort of talking.  He motioned to me to hand him a bottle of some stuff which he had sent for from the chemist, and he took a swig of its contents from the bottle neck before he spoke again.  Then he pointed to a chair at the bed-head, close to his pillow.

“My lungs!” he said, a bit more easily.  “Mortal bad!  Queer thing, a great man like me, but I was always delicate in that way, ever since I was a nipper—­strong as a bull in all else.  But this word is private.  Look here, you’re a lawyer’s clerk?”

He had known that, of course, for some time—­known that I was clerk to a solicitor of the town, and hoping to get my articles, and in due course become a solicitor myself.  So there was no need for me to do more than nod in silence.

“And being so,” he went on, “you’ll be a good hand at keeping a secret very well.  Can you keep one for me, now?”

He had put out one of his big hands as he spoke, and had gripped my wrist with it—­ill as he was, the grip of his fingers was like steel, and yet I could see that he had no idea that he was doing more than laying his hand on me with the appeal of a sick man.