He paused to watch the effect of this upon me.  But I was so taken aback by this new act of kindness that I could not say a word.

“Tom is fast going to the devil, as I told you,” he continued.  “He cannot be trusted.  If I die, that estate shall be Patty’s, and he may never squander it.  Captain Daniel tells me, and Mr. Bordley also, that you managed at Carvel Hall with sense and ability.  I know you are very young, but I think I may rely upon you.”

Again he hesitated, eying me fixedly.

“Ah,” said he, with his quiet smile, “it is the old noblesse oblige.  How many careers has it ruined since the world began!”

CHAPTER XLV

THE HOUSE OF MEMORIES

I was greatly touched, and made Mr. Swain many awkward acknowledgments, which he mercifully cut short.  I asked him for a while to think over his offer.  This seemed to please rather than displease him.  And my first impulse on reaching the inn was to ask the captain’s advice.  I thought better of it however, and at length resolved to thrash out the matter for myself.

The next morning, as I sat reflecting, an overwhelming desire seized me to go to Marlboro’ Street.  Hitherto I could not have borne the sight of the old place.  I gulped down my emotion as the gate creaked behind me, and made my way slowly to the white seat under the big chestnut behind the house, where my grandfather had been wont to sit reading his prints, in the warm weather.  The flowers and the hedges had grown to a certain wildness; and the smell of the American roses carried me back-as odours will-to long-forgotten and trivial scenes.  Here I had been caned many a day for Mr. Daaken’s reports, and for earlier offences.  And I recalled my mother as she once ran out at the sound of my cries to beg me off.  So vivid was that picture that I could hear Mr. Carvel say:  “He is yours, madam, not mine.  Take him!”

I started up.  The house was still, the sun blistering the green paint of the shutters.  My eye was caught by those on the room that had been hers, and which, by my grandfather’s decree, had lain closed since she left it.  The image of it grew in my mind:  the mahogany bed with its poppy counterpane and creamy curtains, and the steps at the side by which she was wont to enter it; and the ‘prie-dieu’, whence her soul had been lifted up to God.  And the dresser with her china and silver upon it, covered by years of dust.  For I had once stolen the key from Willis’s bunch, crept in, and crept out again, awed.  That chamber would be profaned, now, and those dear ornaments, which were mine, violated.  The imagination choked me.

I would have them.  I must.  Nothing easier than to pry open a door or window in the north wing, by the ball-room.  When I saw Grafton I would tell him.  Nay, I would write him that day.  I was even casting about me for an implement, when I heard a step on the gravel beside me.