“You ask what is impossible; it is worse than useless to urge me.  Better pray that I may find a peaceful grave in the cinnamon groves and under the ‘plumy palms’ of the far south.”

He kissed his mother’s cheek and sprang into the saddle, but checked his horse at sight of the orphan, who stood a few yards distant.

“Are you coming to say good-bye?  Or do you reserve such courtesies for your ’good friends’?”

Regret for her former rudeness, and sympathy for Mrs. Murray’s uncontrollable distress, softened her heart toward him; she selected the finest white camellia in the basket, walked close to the horse, and, tendering the flower, said: 

“Good-bye, sir.  I hope you will enjoy your travels.”

“And prolong them indefinitely?  Ah, you offer a flag of truce?  I warned you I should not respect it.  You know my motto, ’Nemo me impune lacessit!’ Thank you, for this lovely peace-offering.  Since you are willing to negotiate, run and open the gate for me.  I may never pass through it again except as a ghost.”

She placed her basket on the steps and ran down the avenue, while he paused to say something to his mother.  Edna knew that he expected to be absent, possibly, several years, and while she regretted the pain which his departure gave her benefactress, she could not avoid rejoicing at the relief she promised herself during his sojourn in foreign lands.

Slowly he rode along the venerable aisle of elms that had overarched his childish head in the sunny morning of a quickly clouded life, and as he reached the gate, which Edna held open, he dismounted.

“Edna, if you are as truthful in all matters as you have proved in your dislikes, I may safely intrust this key to jour keeping.  It belongs to that marble temple in my sitting-room, and opens a vault that contains my will and a box of papers, and—­some other things that I value.  There is no possibility of entering it, except with this key, and no one but myself knows the contents.  I wish to leave the key with you, on two conditions:  first, that you never mention it to any one—­not even my mother, or allow her to suspect that you have it; secondly, that you promise me solemnly you will not open the tomb or temple unless I fail to return at the close of four years.  This is the tenth of December—­four years from to-day, if I am not here, and if you have good reason to consider me dead, take this key (which I wish you to wear about your person) to my mother, inform her of this conversation, and then open the vault.  Can you resist the temptation to look into it?  Think well before you answer.”

He had disengaged the golden key from his watch-chain and held it in his hand.

“I should not like to take charge of it, Mr. Murray.  You can certainly trust your own mother sooner than an utter stranger like myself.”

He frowned and muttered an oath; then exclaimed:  “I tell you I do not choose to leave it in any hands but yours.  Will you promise or will you not?”