Wondering greatly, I did as I was bid, and felt my groping fingers touch what I rightly guessed to be the handle of a box. It was a rare weight, but I got the case down and took it to the bed-side. Mr. Turner, with trembling hands, undid the collar of his shirt, and took from a thin chain around his neck a small key. "Now, listen," he said, "and as you value your peace hereafter keep the charge I commit to you. You're young, Abel, and I've not known you long. But I think I can trust you. I am about to tell you what has never before passed my lips. I know you have wondered often who I am, and why I have lived this lonely and wretched life. It's a sad, sad tale--a tale of sin and shame and sorrow but maybe I shall be the easier for the telling of it, and there's that to be done which must be done if it can be done There's retribution to be made if it can be made, and yours must be the hands to do it." Now it must not be supposed that all this was spoken straight off, as I have written it. It was almost gasped out, and the cold, clammy sweat stood on the poor man's brow as the words came feebly forth from his pallid lips. "You know me, as all about here know me, and have known me ever since, some twenty long years ago, I came to dwell, to drag out my weary years rather, in this wretched haunt in this cold, bleak, inhospitable moor--known me as Mr. Turner, the mad hermit. But that is not my name--it is Garside, the Reverend James Garside, for I am a deacon, duly presented and admitted, of the Established Church. Aye, you may well start and stare. My father was a manufacturer in Manchester. His name, too, was James. I tell you this because you may need all the particulars I can furnish. He died when I was in my second year, leaving my mother in circumstances more than comfortable, I their only child. She was but young when my father left her a widow--he was her senior by many years. She never married again, but devoted her life to the upbringing of her unworthy son. My God! my God! how have I repaid that wealth of love so unstintingly lavished upon me. She could scarce bear me out of her sight, and as I grew older rejected the counsel of her few friends that I should be sent to the Grammar School. I must have a tutor, and be taught at home.