“You are to undertake to have the boy, Leo, to live with you till he is twenty-five years of age—­not to send him to school, remember.  On his twenty-fifth birthday your guardianship will end, and you will then, with the keys that I give you now” (and he placed them on the table) “open the iron box, and let him see and read the contents, and say whether or no he is willing to undertake the quest.  There is no obligation on him to do so.  Now, as regards terms.  My present income is two thousand two hundred a year.  Half of that income I have secured to you by will for life, contingently on your undertaking the guardianship—­that is, one thousand a year remuneration to yourself, for you will have to give up your life to it, and one hundred a year to pay for the board of the boy.  The rest is to accumulate till Leo is twenty-five, so that there may be a sum in hand should he wish to undertake the quest of which I spoke.”

“And suppose I were to die?” I asked.

“Then the boy must become a ward of Chancery and take his chance.  Only be careful that the iron chest is passed on to him by your will.  Listen, Holly, don’t refuse me.  Believe me, this is to your advantage.  You are not fit to mix with the world—­it would only embitter you.  In a few weeks you will become a Fellow of your College, and the income that you will derive from that combined with what I have left you will enable you to live a life of learned leisure, alternated with the sport of which you are so fond, such as will exactly suit you.”

He paused and looked at me anxiously, but I still hesitated.  The charge seemed so very strange.

“For my sake, Holly.  We have been good friends, and I have no time to make other arrangements.”

“Very well,” I said, “I will do it, provided there is nothing in this paper to make me change my mind,” and I touched the envelope he had put upon the table by the keys.

“Thank you, Holly, thank you.  There is nothing at all.  Swear to me by God that you will be a father to the boy, and follow my directions to the letter.”

“I swear it,” I answered solemnly.

“Very well, remember that perhaps one day I shall ask for the account of your oath, for though I am dead and forgotten, yet I shall live.  There is no such thing as death, Holly, only a change, and, as you may perhaps learn in time to come, I believe that even that change could under certain circumstances be indefinitely postponed,” and again he broke into one of his dreadful fits of coughing.

“There,” he said, “I must go, you have the chest, and my will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you.  You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I will haunt you.”

I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak.