The servant moved the table nearer to his master, handed him the tumbler, and, in his own mind, considered the pros and cons of giving warning on the spot. A dim hope of a possible legacy gave the cons the victory, but the man did not remain in the sick-room a moment longer than was absolutely necessary. As he confided to the wife of the porter, in the basement, "Old Saunders was getting that unbearable in his illness, it was hard to stand him." The sick man lay quiet after the servant had left him, his eyes fixed upon the waving green of the tree-tops in the square. A faint curiosity as to what tree it was that he could see, ran through his mind. Was it an elm, he wondered? There had been elms in the meadow behind the old Rectory garden where he had played as a boy--great elms in which the rooks had built year after year. It was a long, long time since he had heard the soft cawing of the rooks. He had a faint remembrance of picking daisies and buttercups in those fields under the elms, whilst the rooks cawed soothingly overhead. A little smile flickered across his hard old face. Perhaps the tree in the square was not an elm after all. It might be a lime. There had been limes in another garden, and the bees had hummed amongst their blossoms on that summer's day when--when---- Why, how many years ago was it? Forty? Fifty? Could it be forty years? He had been a young fellow then, at the beginning of his career, and life had been less crammed with work and business. He moved restlessly. Yes! He had been able then to notice the sweetness of a girl's eyes, to heed the music of a girl's voice. Pshaw! It was utter folly to let his thoughts wander to so remote a past. What was the good of remembrance? And yet---- If he had not been so wrapped up in his work, to the exclusion of everything human and loveable, he might now have had other hands than those of Richard his valet to tend him. A woman would have made his room look less like a prison cell. A woman would not have put his things just out of his reach. She would not have been in such a hurry to leave him to himself! Again he stirred irritably. He hated the sight of those rustling leaves now, even though they held some strange fascination for him; but they reminded him too strongly of youth, and love, and happiness. And he had wilfully put them all away from him with his own hands. Ah! fool and blind that he had been! And now--now, he was old and dying--and alone! The door opened softly. Richard stepped quietly in, and seeing that his master's eyes were shut, laid a note upon the table, and as quietly departed again. "Bother the man!" old John Saunders muttered. "He seems afraid to stay with me. A letter for me? Strange--very strange." And he stretched out his hand and took up the envelope.