"Ain't you well?" asked his son, brusquely, but not unkindly.

"Well; ah, yes! thank you, Philip, I never felt better, my memory is
so good, I can see things I have forgotten seventy years or more.
Dear, dear, it was behind that bookcase in a hole in the board that I
used to hide my flint and steel which I used for making little fires
at the foot of Caresfoot's Staff. There is a mark on the bark now. I
was mischievous as a little lad, and thought that the old tree would
make a fine blaze. I was audacious, too, and delighted to hide the
things in my father's study under the very nose of authority. Ay, and
other memories come upon me as I think. It was here upon this very
table that they stood my mother's coffin. I was standing where you are
now when I wrenched open the half-fastened shell to kiss her once more
before they screwed her down for ever. I wonder would you do as much
for me? I loved my mother, and that was fifty years ago. I wonder
shall we meet again? That was on the first of May, a long-gone first
of May. They threw branches of blackthorn bloom upon her coffin. Odd,
very odd! But business, lad, business--what was it? Ah! I know," and
his manner changed in a second and became hard and stern. "About
Maria, have you come to a decision?"

Philip moved restlessly on his chair, poked the logs to a brighter
blaze, and threw on a handful of pine chips from a basket by his side
before he answered. Then he said--

"No, I have not."

"Your reluctance is very strange, Philip, I cannot understand it. I
suppose that you are not already married, are you, Philip?"