'Yes, sir.'

'You won't forget this cabinet--oak--next the door--on your left--you won't
forget?'

'No, sir.'

'Pity she's a girl, and so young--ay, a girl, and so young--no
sense--giddy. You say, you'll _remember_?'

'Yes, sir.'

'It behoves you.'

He turned round and looked full upon me, like a man who has taken a sudden
resolution; and I think for a moment he had made up his mind to tell me a
great deal more. But if so, he changed it again; and after another pause,
he said slowly and sternly--'You will tell nobody what I have said, under
pain of my displeasure.'

'Oh! no, sir!'

'Good child!'

'_Except_,' he resumed, 'under one contingency; that is, in case I should
be absent, and Dr. Bryerly--you recollect the thin gentleman, in spectacles
and a black wig, who spent three days here last month--should come and
enquire for the key, you understand, in my absence.'

'Yes, sir.'