find no
note of it among his papers--but he had expressed a wish, a wish
that they felt they could not disregard. He had expressed it the
night before he died to Antigone, who was with him.

"Did he not, dearest?"

I heard Antigone say, "Yes, Mamma." She was not looking at me then.

There was a perfectly awful silence. And then Antigone did look at
me, and she smiled faintly.

"It isn't you," she said.

No, it was not I. I wasn't in it. It was Grevill Burton.

I ought to tell you it wasn't an open secret any longer that Burton
was editing the "Life and Letters of Ford Lankester," with a
Critical Introduction. The announcement had appeared in the papers a
day or two before Wrackham's death. He had had his eye on Burton. He
may have wavered between him and another, he may have doubted
whether Burton was after all good enough; but that honor, falling to
Burton at that moment, clinched it. _There_ was prestige, _there_
was the thing he wanted. Burton was his man.

There wouldn't, Mrs. Wrackham said, be so very much editing to do.
He had worked hard in the years before his death. He had gathered in
all the material, and there were considerable fragments--whole
blocks of reminiscences, which could be left, which _should_ be left
as they stood (her manner implied that they were monuments). What
they wanted, of course, was something more than editing. Anybody
could have done that. There was the Life to be completed in the
later years, the years in which Mr. Burton had known him more
intimately than any of his friends. Above all, what was necessary,
what had been made so necessary, was a Critical Introduction, the
summing up, the giving of him to the world as he really was.

Did I think they had better approach Mr. Burton direct, or would I
do that for them? Would I sound him on the subject?

I said cheerfully that I would sound him. If Burton couldn't
undertake it (I had to prepare them for this possibility), no doubt
we should find somebody who could.

But Antigone met this suggestion with a clear "No." It wasn't to be
done at all unless Mr. Burton did it. And her mother gave a little
cry. It was inconceivable that it should not be done. Mr. Burton
must. He would. He would see the necessity, the importance of it.

Of course _I_ saw it. And I saw that my position and Burton's was
more desperate than I had imagined. I couldn't help but see the
immense importance of the "Life and Letters." They were bound, even
at