after her death; it had come from the fact (as I soon learned) that
she had taken interest in monumental brasses, and had begun the
collection of rubbings.

And yet this martyr to a mighty passion bore the character of a
dreamy student; and his calm, un-furrowed face, on common occasions,
expressed nothing but a rather dull kind of content! Here was a
revelation of what, afterwards, was often revealed to me, that human
personality is the crowning wonder of this wonderful universe, and
that the forces which turn fire-mist into stars are not more
inscrutable than is human character. He lifted up his head and gazed
at me through his tears.

'Hal,' he said, 'do you know why I have shown you this? It _must_,
MUST be buried with me at my death; and there is no one upon whose
energy, truth, courage, and strength of will I can rely as I can upon
yours. You must give me your word, Hal, that you will see it and this
casket containing her letters buried with me.'

I hesitated to become a party to such an undertaking as this. It
savoured of superstition, I thought. Now, having at that very time
abandoned all the superstitions and all the mystical readings of the
universe which as a child I had inherited from ancestors, Romany and
English, having at that very time begun to take a delight in the
wonderful revelations of modern science, my attitude towards
superstition--towards all super-naturalism--oscillated between anger
and simple contempt.

'But,' I said, 'you surely will not have this beautiful old cross
buried?' And as I looked at it, and the light fell upon it, there