"I couldn't let you go," said Edgar. "It used to come across me what it would be like to die alone. I was afraid of getting worse always, though I wouldn't own it to myself. Afraid of having to lie here shut up from the air and the light, and just the things that made life bearable--with never any change. But now that I have you--" "I have had much that I don't deserve," said Alwyn very low; "but of all these mercies, the one I am most glad, most thankful for, is that I can help you, my dear, dear boy! Thank God for that!" "I am glad," said Edgar; "oh, how glad! But I am afraid I don't know much about being thankful, Val; you must teach me." CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. IN A "RIFT IMPRISONED." Wyn gave up his basket of wild flowers to Mr Elton, who had charge of the arrangements for the flower show, and then went on to Ravenshurst with those he had collected for Lily. He had been sent over there once or twice with parcels or messages for Florence, and the nurse, thinking him a well-behaved little boy, allowed him to stop and give his opinion, whether the white flowers gathered in the hedges were all, as Florence said, "hemlock," or would rank as different specimens. Wyn sorted out yarrow and wild parsley, cow parsley, and several others, and then said: "Miss Lily hasn't got any honeysuckle. That's not rare, but it is very sweet, and suitable for a young lady's basket. You should put the climbing things round the edge for her, Florrie; different sorts of brambles, and dog-rose berries, and traveller's joy." "There's some honeysuckle on the old oak tree," said Florrie, "but we can't get it, it's too high up." "I'll fetch it down for you," said Wyn, scrambling up the lower branches of the tree. "Why," he said, putting his hand into a hole a few feet up, "how clean someone's scraped out this hole--taken all the old nests out of it!" "There ain't nothing in it, Wyn, is there?" said Florrie. "No; I once tried to make that hole ever so nice and soft with moss and stuff, and put acorns and nuts in it to get the squirrels there. I even went and got a bit of putty and stopped up the hole in the bottom and put decayed wood over it; but, bless you, they never came." "_What_ did you do, Wyn?" said Florence, coming close. "Stopped a great hole. It's stopped still; I can put my hand down, and you feel nothing but wood." "Could you get the hole open, Wyn? Was it a hole that things could be hidden in?" "I suppose so. Whatever is the matter, Florrie? You look downright scared!" The hole was wide and shallow. Wyn took the knife with which he had meant to cut the honeysuckle, scraped and cut, and, the soft decayed wood giving way, the piece of putty yielded to his pull and came out. "There's a hole, but I can't feel the bottom of it," he said. "Put in my sunshade; feel with the hook."