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 the sale, in the Athenæum, and other similar papers. To him Mr. Corbet
