"God knows, sir--"

"Yes, sir, God does know--all; and you shall know a little--as much as I
can tell--or you understand. Come upstairs with me, sir, as you'll drink
no more; I have a liking for you. I have watched you from your boyhood,
and I can trust you, and I'll show you what I never showed to mortal man
but one."

And, taking up a candle, he led the way upstairs, while Amyas followed
wondering.

He stopped at a door, and unlocked it.

"There, come in. Those shutters have not been opened since she--" and
the old man was silent.

Amyas looked round the room. It was a low wainscoted room, such as one
sees in old houses: everything was in the most perfect neatness.
The snow-white sheets on the bed were turned down as if ready for an
occupant. There were books arranged on the shelves, fresh flowers on the
table; the dressing-table had all its woman's mundus of pins, and rings,
and brushes; even the dressing-gown lay over the chair-back. Everything
was evidently just as it had been left.

"This was her room, sir," whispered the old man.

Amyas nodded silently, and half drew back.

"You need not be modest about entering it now, sir," whispered he, with
a sort of sneer. "There has been no frail flesh and blood in it for many
a day."

Amyas sighed.

"I sweep it out myself every morning, and keep all tidy. See here!"
and he pulled open a drawer. "Here are all her gowns, and there are her
hoods; and there--I know 'em all by heart now, and the place of every
one. And there, sir--"

And he opened a cupboard, where lay in rows all Rose's dolls, and the
worn-out playthings of her childhood.

"That's the pleasantest place of all in the room to me," said he,
whispering still, "for it minds me of when--and maybe, she may become a
little child once more, sir; it's written in the Scripture, you know--"

"Amen!" said Amyas, who felt, to his own wonder, a big tear stealing
down each cheek.

"And now," he whispered, "one thing more. Look here!"--and pulling out a
key, he unlocked a chest, and lifted up tray after tray of necklaces
and jewels, furs, lawns, cloth of gold. "Look there! Two thousand pound
won't buy that chest. Twenty years have I been getting those things
together. That's the cream of many a Levant voyage, and East Indian
voyage, and West Indian voyage. My Lady Bath can't match those pearls in
her grand house at Tawstock; I got 'em from a Genoese, though, and paid
for 'em. Look at that embroidered law