“It’s not that I don’t thank you, and kindly, too; but I’m too old to go chopping and changing.”

“But it would be no change to come back to me, Dixon,” said Ellinor.

“Yes, it would.  I were born i’ Hamley, and it’s i’ Hamley I reckon to die.”

On her urging him a little more, it came out that he had a strong feeling that if he did not watch the spot where the dead man lay buried, the whole would be discovered; and that this dread of his had often poisoned the pleasure of his visit to East Chester.

“I don’t rightly know how it is, for I sometimes think if it wasn’t for you, missy, I should be glad to have made it all clear before I go; and yet at times I dream, or it comes into my head as I lie awake with the rheumatics, that some one is there, digging; or that I hear ’em cutting down the tree; and then I get up and look out of the loft window—­you’ll mind the window over the stables, as looks into the garden, all covered over wi’ the leaves of the jargonelle pear-tree?  That were my room when first I come as stable-boy, and tho’ Mr. Osbaldistone would fain give me a warmer one, I allays tell him I like th’ old place best.  And by times I’ve getten up five or six times a-night to make sure as there was no one at work under the tree.”

Ellinor shivered a little.  He saw it, and restrained himself in the relief he was receiving from imparting his superstitious fancies.

“You see, missy, I could never rest a-nights if I didn’t feel as if I kept the secret in my hand, and held it tight day and night, so as I could open my hand at any minute and see as it was there.  No! my own little missy will let me come and see her now and again, and I know as I can allays ask her for what I want:  and if it please God to lay me by, I shall tell her so, and she’ll see as I want for nothing.  But somehow I could ne’er bear leaving Hamley.  You shall come and follow me to my grave when my time comes.”

“Don’t talk so, please, Dixon,” said she.

“Nay, it’ll be a mercy when I can lay me down and sleep in peace:  though I sometimes fear as peace will not come to me even there.”  He was going out of the room, and was now more talking to himself than to her.  “They say blood will out, and if it weren’t for her part in it, I could wish for a clear breast before I die.”

She did not hear the latter part of this mumbled sentence.  She was looking at a letter just brought in and requiring an immediate answer.  It was from Mr. Brown.  Notes from him were of daily occurrence, but this contained an open letter the writing of which was strangely familiar to her—­it did not need the signature “Ralph Corbet,” to tell her whom the letter came from.  For some moments she could not read the words.  They expressed a simple enough request, and were addressed to the auctioneer who was to dispose of the rather valuable library of the late Mr. Ness, and whose name had been advertised in connection with