"Patience," said the tutor; "it took several years to capture Troy."
"All very well for an old bachelor like you. I expected you'd say something like that. I know I could make her happy if she'd let me try. But she won't even let me tell her I love her. What should you do yourself?"
Mr Armstrong coloured up at the bare notion of such a dilemma.
"I think I might come to you and ask your advice," said he.
"I know," said he. "Of course it's a thing one has to play off one's own bat, but I sometimes wish I were anything but the heir of Maxfield. She might care for me then."
"You can disinherit yourself by becoming a criminal, or marrying under age--"
"Or dying--thank you," said the boy. "You are something like a consoler. I know it's a shame to bore you about it, but I've no one else to talk to."
"I'd give my right hand to help you, old fellow," said the tutor; "but, as you say, I'm absolutely no use in a case like this."
"I know. Come upstairs and play something."
"By the way," said the tutor, as they reached the study, "I've something to give you. You may as well have it now."
And he went to his desk and took out an envelope.
"It will explain itself," said he, handing it to the boy.
He sat down at the piano, and wandered over the keys, while Roger, too full of his own cares to give much heed to the missive in his hands, walked over to the window and looked out across the park. The afternoon sun was glancing across the woods, and gleaming far away on the sea. "If only she would share it with me," thought he to himself, "how proud I should be of the dear old place. But what good is it all to me if she condemns me to possess it all myself?"
Then with a sigh he turned his back on the scene, and let his eyes fall on the letter.
He started as he recognised the dead hand of his father in the inscription--
"_To be given unopened into the hands of Roger Ingleton junior, on his twentieth birthday_."
His breath came fast as he broke the seal and looked within. The envelope contained two enclosures, a document and a letter. The latter, which he examined first, was dated scarcely a fortnight before the old man's death, written in the same trembling hand as the words on the envelope.
"My dear son," it said, "this will reach you long after the hand that writes it is still and cold. My days are numbered, and for better or worse are rapidly flying to their account. But before I go, I have something to say to you. Read this, and the paper I enclose herewith. If, after reading them, you choose to destroy them, no one will blame you; no one will know--you will do no one an injury. You are free to act as you choose. What follows is not a request from me, still less a command. It is a confidence--no more."