And
now, what do you want me to do?'
'Nobody,' I said, 'must know of the cross but ourselves. I want you,
mother, to do what I cannot do: I want you to go on the sands and
wait for the turn of the tide; I want you to take the cross from
Wynne's breast, if the body should be exposed, and secure it in
secret till it can be replaced in the coffin.'
'_I_ do this, Henry?' said my mother, with a look of bewilderment at
my earnestness. 'Yet there is reason in what you say, and grievous as
the task would be for me, I must consider it.'
'But will you engage to do it, mother?'
'Really, Henry, you forget yourself,--you forget your mother too. For
me to go down to the sands and watch the ebbing of the tide, and then
defile myself by touching the body of this wretch, is a task I
naturally shrink from. Still if, on thinking it over, I find it my
duty to do it, it will not be needful for me to enter into a compact
with my son that my duty to my dead husband shall be performed.
Good-night. I quite think you will be better in the morning. I see no
signs myself of the fever you seem to dread, and, alas! I am not, as
you know, ignorant of the way in which a fever begins.
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