"Grey!"
"Yes, Sir Alexander."
"You helped me to put this fortune together for my daughter."
A bow of deprecation.
"You have been ten years now taking care of it for her."
"Yes, Sir Alexander." What was coming now? Could all this be aruse? Was this serene interview to end in a storm of intolerable ruin? Had this old man been leading up with deceiving equanimity to some prodigious burst, some unendurable tempest of reproach?
"Will you go still farther?"
"In what way?"
"Will you act as one of the executors, the chief—no, as the sole, as sole trustee and guardian?"
"What! Sir Alexander, Sir Alexander, are you—are you trifling with me? If you are, give it up. I cannot, I will not, be trifled with." His face shrivelled up, and he covered it in his hands. For that brief space he thought all had been discovered.
"What I say I mean. Why should I trifle with you? If I am to die or be killed, let me die with the knowledge that the fortune of my child will be as safe when I am dead as it is now. Will you do this, Grey, for me?"
"I will."
"Then you may tell Shaw to come. Go to him at once. I wish to make my will."
Mr. Grey's drive to Castle Ferry had been an excursion to meet victory; his return to Daneford was a triumphant progress.
Now it seemed to him nothing short of a conspiracy between fate and accident could wreck him. The two chances which had threatened him with ruin had melted into thin air. Nothing adverse to him would be in the will, and not only that, but from the day of Sir Alexander's death until the coming of age of Miss Midharst he would have absolute control of affairs, and every chance of making good the sum he had abstracted. The gold was going to beat the lead at a walk.
The financial world was now in a state of deplorable despondency, but that condition of things could not last for ever. There was of course no prospect of his making a tenth part of the half a million profit during the twelve months; but the St. George's Bank was gone, and deposits would come flowing in, and having obliged his London agents in their need, they could not refuse him anything in reason by-and-by. After riding out the bad times his credit would be so firmly established that he could get money on the best terms to build up the horrible gap he had made. He could borrow to replace what he had stolen.
"I shall win now, and I shall win easily," he thought, as he drove through the bright fresh air towards Daneford; "and by the time there is another dissolution, who can tell but I may take one of the seats for the city, if it is offered to me."
He went straight to Mr. Shaw, and told that gentleman how Sir Alexander Midharst desired to see him with a view to making his will, and how the client, although in no immediate danger of death, was nevertheless in a state of health which made it highly desirable his worldly affairs should be put in order as quickly as possible.
Mr. Shaw visited the Castle that evening, wrote from the baronet's dictation, and on Monday, the 4th of June, 1866, the will was signed by Sir Alexander in the presence of two competent witnesses, who, in the presence of the testator and of one another, affixed their signatures.
A few days afterwards Mr. Gray met the lawyer.
"Well," said the banker, with one of his easiest smiles, "did you do what was required at the Castle?"
"Yes," answered the white-haired solicitor, who was tremulous, and had a disconcerting way of shutting his eyes and consulting imaginary internal Acts of Parliament when he spoke. He was not by nature communicative, and he held in rigid regard all professional etiquette; but Mr. Henry Walter Grey was a very exceptional man, and, moreover, the testator had told him Mr. Grey had consented to act as guardian and trustee; therefore he did not feel he committed any impropriety in adding: "Sir Alexander appears to share public feeling in your favour, and to place unlimited confidence in our most careful banker."
"You are very kind," returned Mr. Grey, with his most cordial smile. "As you know, our establishment has been a long time connected with the Castle, and when Sir Alexander asked me to act, it would look ungracious in me to refuse."
"It's a heavy responsibility."
"Oh, as far as the responsibility goes——" He did not finish the sentence in words, but with a shrug of his shoulders, as much as to say: "We bankers are accustomed to grave responsibilities." Then the two parted.
From this conversation Grey not only gathered that the will had been made, but also that under it he had been appointed executor and trustee to the document and the estate, and guardian to the heiress.
What more could he require to put his mind at rest?
And yet as the days went on he was far from easy. Many things caused him trouble and made him anxious. The gloom over the financial world deepened instead of lifting. The ordinary depositors grew shyer and shyer, as crash followed crash, and house followed house, in the awful ruin of the time.
No one breathed a word against the Daneford Bank; all who spoke of it acknowledged its position unassailable; still its business showed no vast increase, no such increase as would help Grey out of the whirlpool into which he had been drawn, although the Bank's borrowing power had been secured.
From bad, things went to worse. As the year wore on, some of his best customers began to feel the pressure of the times. Instead of finding funds flowing into the Bank in unexampled abundance, money ran out.
Old respectable firms now came to him and asked to be helped over the disastrous period. They brought this security and that, and begged for advances. If the name and fame of the Bank were to be magnified, this was the time to do it. He had still funds enough to make the Bank proof against contingency; over and above this he had a little margin, not much, but most useful.
About the middle of June the Weeslade Steamship Company quarrelled with their bankers, the Weeslade Valley Bank. The Steamship Company wanted an advance of five thousand pounds on the river steamboatRodwell, which carried passengers between Daneford and Seacliff. The Weeslade Valley Bank refused. The Steamship Company withdrew their account from the Valley Bank, and offered their business to the Daneford Bank. The account was opened in the Daneford, and the advance was made by mortgage on theRodwell, the Steamship Company paying interest on the advance, and depositing with the mortgage a policy of insurance against total loss by water or weather.
Towards the end of June the Daneford Bank's London agent failed, by which the Bank lost a clear twenty thousand pounds, besides losses by delay in getting a dividend. This was very serious. It caused a run on the Daneford Bank. In three days thirty thousand pounds were withdrawn in excess of average draughts.
On the morning of the third day the Daneford Bank issued a circular which took the town by storm. The circular was brief, and ran as follows:
"Thursday, 28th June, 1866."The Daneford Bank."Take notice, owing to the fact that a run has begun on the Daneford Bank, the offices of that Bank will be opened every morning at eight instead of nine, and will be closed at seven instead of four p.m., until this run has ceased."Henry Walter Grey."
"Thursday, 28th June, 1866.
"The Daneford Bank.
"Take notice, owing to the fact that a run has begun on the Daneford Bank, the offices of that Bank will be opened every morning at eight instead of nine, and will be closed at seven instead of four p.m., until this run has ceased.
"Henry Walter Grey."
This circular was town talk the next day. The admirers of Wat were more enthusiastic than ever in their praises of his boldness and wisdom. This circular killed the panic, and on Saturday of the same week the drawings had shrunk back to an average. Yet for another week the Bank was kept open from eight in the morning till seven in the evening.
On Monday, the 9th of July, a second circular was issued from the Bank, saying that as the run had ceased for a week the office hours for the future would be as of old, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
But, although the run had ceased, upwards of thirty thousand pounds had been withdrawn, and only five thousand found its way back again, and that was decidedly bad. The Bank was not in the least jeopardy. Sir Alexander Midharst's half a million had saved it; but the baronet's money was not only not returning, but the balance of it in hand began to run low.
Notwithstanding all this business pressure and the perilous position in which Grey stood, no one could detect in his face or manner a clue to the anxiety which consumed him. Still he was the same joyous companion, the same jovial host, the same considerate employer, the same liberal patron.
To his mother he displayed the best view of his position. He showed her how the steamship business had fallen in to him because he was in funds and could give accommodation beyond the power of his local rival. He admitted the loss in London, but pointed out how the loss and the run, taken together, must end in great advantage to his Bank.
She heard not only his story, but, from all who spoke to her on the subject, congratulations upon the Bank's position and his great prudence and good sense. He told her the money from Boston had not only saved him, but had so improved his resources that the Bank was now in fully as good a position as at any time during his father's lifetime.
Hard as the business affairs of Mr. Grey pressed upon him, and difficult as he felt the burden, they were not all the troubles he had to endure.
In order to prevent bankruptcy he had committed fraud. Up to this time he had carried on that fraud without exciting a hint of suspicion. The man whose money he had appropriated to his own use not only felt no misgivings as to the safety of his vast hoard, but had recently lavished upon him, Grey, the last proofs of implicit confidence when placing practically all that fortune and the care of the heiress in his hands.
But, as well as the pressure of his business and the weight of his crime, he had other difficulties to endure. He still entertained his friends with his usual hospitality and good grace, but the condition of the inner circle of his domestic life grew daily harder and harder to bear.
The eccentricity of Mrs. Grey developed with time, and, still more unfortunately, the terrible infirmity to which she had given way increased upon her with the years.
She was childless; she was alone all day in that great strange house; few people called upon her, and she rarely went out. Her husband was always kind in manner towards her, and she could ask for nothing he would not get her. But she knew he and she were not one, that they never had been one, that they never could be one.
Mr. Grey did not lunch at home, so that Mrs. Grey usually had luncheon by herself, except upon the rare occasions when one of her few acquaintances called and stayed.
Seldom Mr. Grey dined out; often he had someone to dine with him, and often he gave parties. All this caused Mrs. Grey to be much by herself, and solitude was, for one of her disposition and tendency, fatal.
By little and little the disastrous habit grew. It was most carefully concealed from the servants. At first Grey had tried to effect a cure; then, despairing of that, he strove with all his skill to avoid a scandal.
With that view he had a little cupboard fitted up in the only room furnished in the Tower. For this cupboard he got two keys—one for himself, and one for his wife. In giving her the key he had said quietly:
"In future you will find the wine for ordinary purposes in the new cupboard; so that you may not have the trouble of sending to the cellar for it, or in case I am out and you want more than is decanted, you can get it there. You will always have some there without sending to the cellar for it."
"But we don't want any more than is decanted—so few people call," said the wife tremulously.
"I know, I know. But someone may call, and as I keep the key of the cellar you might find yourself in a difficult position. Take this key of the cupboard, and here is the key of the room itself; there is only one other key, and I have that. The room is the quietest in the whole house.The door locks on either the in or the outside.The room is comfortably done up, and you can make any use you please of it. If you feel worried, or not very well, and wish to get away from the annoyance of the servants, you can go and lie down a while there."
These precautions were deplorable and degrading. All the love he had once borne this woman had died; and although he carefully concealed his feelings towards her, he had at last come to regard her with loathing.
She was in no way responsible for the disasters which had fallen on his business; she furnished no excuse for the crime he had committed, but she was one of the elements in his misfortune; and now that she had fallen into an odious fault, he resolved to put no impediment in her downward career, so long as her descent did not become apparent or public.
It was a sad development of the romantic and chivalric story of Wat Grey's wooing. But then, so long as Daneford knew nothing of the decay of that romance or the decline of that chivalry, the fact that both were going—gone, was of little moment to Wat Grey.
His embezzlement of the money had taught him that damaging facts had no injurious influence with the public—so long as the facts were carefully concealed. He found crime an easier burden than he had expected, and in place of his old dread of crime itself he had now a dread of disclosure only. If he had grown to hate his wife, what then—so long as no one knew of it.
Up to this point Fate seemed to have played deliberately into his hands. He had ruined himself in Southern expectations, Fate had put more than half a million of money into his power, and he had extricated his fortune. An unlucky turn of the die might have betrayed him, and given him up to worse destruction than the former, but all came round as though he had the ordering of events. Not only was there to be no immediate call for that money, no immediate investigation into accounts with a checking of documents and an examination of affairs, but he was appointed supreme custodian of the whole property, and, for upwards of a year from the old man's death, no enquiry disadvantageous to him could be set on foot.
Suppose the old man were to die soon, and business were to keep on the disastrous lines it had adopted of late? What then?
What then?
Many and many a day he put that question to himself in the morning before he broke his fast; and again at night before he went to bed he repeated this terrible question—unanswered.
And the more he pondered over this question the less he liked to look at the answer. Not that the simple and direct answer appalled him, for that had been familiar to his mind for some time; the simple answer was, Ruin—Self-imposed Death.
That was the positive answer to the question; but that did not affright himnow, though it had terrified him at first.
He was still what might be called a young man, for he carried his five-and-forty years more easily than many another man carried thirty. He was not a whit insensible to the many physical and social personal advantages he possessed. He knew he was a favourite wherever he went. He knew he was good-looking. He knew he was clever.
He knew he was married.
His wife had brought him nothing worth speaking of—not position, happiness. He had been everything to her, and how poorly had she requited him! It was only by the utmost care he avoided a damning scandal alighting upon his name through her.
Fortune had favoured him up to this. Would Fortune be his friend still further? Was it too much to hope that another great piece of good luck might await him?
There was one sure way out of all his danger and difficulties, if he had only been a single man: there was Maud.
If, when Sir Alexander died, he were a bachelor, he might marry Maud. She knew nothing of the world, and he knew she liked him. There would be no need for his ruin if he were only a bachelor.
It was beyond the power of Fate to make him a bachelor; but suppose Fate should take away that unloved wife, that great danger to his name, that great stumbling-block in the way of his successful progress?
Then?What then? Answer: He should marry Maud, and so wipe out the history of his crime.
Would chance or accident, would Heaven or Hell, or whatever else he might call it, take away from him this woman who was a curse and burden, and give him that woman who would bring him deliverance?
Such thoughts had long haunted his mind before he had heard on that 17th of August the voices which assailed and tempted him in tremendous tones; that day on which the fate of the steamboatRodwelland of Beatrice his wife, of the Weird Sisters and the Towers of Silence, became sealed together for ever.
When the Weeslade Valley Bank declined to advance five thousand pounds on the Weeslade Steamship Company's river passenger-boat theRodwell, they had two reasons for the refusal: first, they were not prepared to lock up money at the time; second, a report reached them that theRodwellwas in bad condition.
In the winter of the year 1865 theRodwellhad lain up, undergoing repairs, and then the discovery was made that her condition was far from satisfactory. Many of her plates were no thicker than brown-paper, and just at the bends aft the point of a scraper had absolutely gone through a plate.
The boilers, too, were found to be in an unsatisfactory condition, and the machinery needed thorough overhauling.
But they wanted the boat for the summer traffic, and had no time to get all she required done before the fine weather; so she was patched for the time, the intention being to lay her up the following autumn and put her in good repair; in the meantime one new boiler was to be made for her.
Towards the middle of April she began running as usual with passengers between Daneford and Seacliff.
On her third trip she broke down; something went wrong with her machinery, and she had to be towed into Seacliff by another steamer.
As this accident occurred early in the season there were few passengers, and little excitement arose from the circumstance.
Almost the whole trade of theRodwellconsisted of carrying seaside folk from Daneford to Seacliff and back again. She sailed every week-day of the season from Seacliff to Daneford at half-past seven in the morning, and from Daneford to Seacliff at half-past six in the afternoon. Many of the business men of the city kept their families all the season at Seacliff, they themselves coming and going between the little town and the city daily, and enjoying the advantages of sleeping in sea-freshened air and two bright pleasant sails of a couple of hours each in the day.
When, in overhauling theRodwellin 1865, they found the boilers in not a satisfactory condition, they took off five pounds of steam. "Better to be sure than sorry," they said. This reduction of steam made theRodwellslower in 1866 than in previous years.
On Tuesday, the 14th of August, 1866, the engineer of theRodwellmade a report to the owners, and was directed to work her at another five pounds' reduction of pressure.
When Grey advanced the five thousand pounds on the mortgage he made no enquiry into her condition. He knew the boat very well, had many times travelled by her between Daneford and Seacliff. He knew she was worth more than the money asked for, and as no mortgage existed upon her he felt he should be quite secure if the company ensured her, and handed him a policy for five thousand pounds. His position was that if the company did not pay the interest on his money and his money itself, ultimately he could seize theRodwell; and if the steamboat were lost by any chance of wind or water he should get his money from the insurance company.
Mr. Grey was as familiar with the steamboatRodwellas any man in Daneford. He had often spent the summer months with his wife at Seacliff, and had been a passenger in the boat hundreds of times. He knew all the men employed on her; he knew every exterior brass plate and hinge and bolt. He could go about her blindfold, and steer her up or down the river. He didn't understand machinery, but often said he could command, steer, and attend to the engines all by himself, and save the wages of the crew.
Daneford was proud of all its institutions, and after Wat there were few it felt more complaisant about than the pretty town and picturesque scenery of Seacliff and the faithfulRodwell, the town being regarded as the country sweetheart, the milkmaid lover of the city, and the steamboat as the Mercury of the love-making.
It was Grey's intention to spend the month of September, 1866, at Seacliff. He did not own a house there. It had been his custom to rent a small white cottage that hung half-way down a red cliff surrounding one of the blue bays clustering around the high headland on which the white town was built.
He did not regard his sojourn at Seacliff with any lively anticipations. It was pleasant to steam up and down the blue river between the sunlit green shores, through the sweet odours from the woods and hedges freshened and spiritualised by the full broad river. The morning swim in the strong sea-water brought the sense of health and vigour and power into his frame. The breakfast, ample, well cooked, appetising, with blithe company, full of inspiriting talk and resolute happiness, in the steamer's cabin, would cure a misanthrope and buoy the heart of a cynic. The joyous solemnity of that cigar on deck afterwards would reconcile an anchorite to comfort. Yet for all these advantages Henry Walter Grey did not like his season at Seacliff.
The evening voyage was no less to be enjoyed. After the dust and worry of the city's day it was good to feel the moist winds blowing through your hair, against your forehead; to hear the cooling swirl of the water at the bow, and the far-off wash of the steamer's swells upon the shadowy shore; to watch the crimson sunset, and the coming of the pale-blue stars, and the red moon that, slowly rising from the hot earth to the limpid sky, grew mild and fair, while under it the white earth sailed silent down the ocean of the dark; to feel the hallowed peace of night ascending from earth to God.
But it ruined all to know in that cottage above the bay on the ledge of red cliff one waited who was no companion, yet bound to him for life; to know year by year the chasm between them widened; and that above that chasm hung a spirit of evil, the bad angel of a terrible weakness, which might at any moment become visible to all those standing by, and ruin her, and bring on him pity—pity, that boneless scorn more unendurable than contempt or loathing.
In the deep seclusion of the Manor, Grey felt the skeleton in his house was pretty safely hidden; here in Seacliff there were innumerable chances of discovery. It is more than likely he would not have gone to Seacliff in the summer if by any possibility he could safely avoid it. But all the well-off people of Daneford went every year to the little town, and to depart from the custom would be to attract a dangerous attention to himself and his household. It had been his custom of former years to stay at Seacliff for three months of summer; but in the year 1866 he resolved to limit his stay to one month—the month of September.
When he and she were at home in the Manor House, she was more directly under his control, immediately under his observation. But on leaving Seacliff in the morning he was always weighed down by the dread that in this little town of much gossip something might leak out while he was away. She might go into the town, and in some incautious way betray her fault, and destroy all the respect people felt for her—all the respect they felt for his wife.
What an awful millstone to carry about with one! Fancy the men at the street-corners chatting together, or groups standing at the Chamber of Commerce windows, or the members of the Club, or his own staff at the Bank, looking after him with compassionate eyes, and saying: "Poor Wat! How sad and worn and broken-down he looks! What a wretched thing! What a dreadful thing when a man's wife is a—drunkard!"
The last word was always haunting his ears, always booming in the hollow caverns through which his fears followed him during sleep; and although the habit of Mrs. Grey had not yet become so confirmed as to justify the application of such an odious epithet, her case was growing no better, growing rather worse with time.
All the Midharst money was gone. Her fault was at most a vice; but he had committed a crime. He lay between two fears; he was threatened by two discoveries. Someone might find out about her, and blast the fame of the Manor House; someone might find out about him, and blast the Daneford Bank, and lock him up in jail, and brand the name he bore with ignominy.
In such a state of mind was Grey when the 16th of August arrived and evening brought him home. The husband and wife sat down alone to dinner, sat down alone to the last dinner they were ever to eat together.
"Bee," said Grey to his wife, when the dessert had been brought in and the servants had gone, "do you think you could go down to Seacliff in theRodwellto-morrow evening, and look up the cottage? I saw the estimable and penurious landlord of it to-day. It's not occupied this month, and he wanted me to take it from the 20th. I'm half inclined to accept his offer. He says we can have it from the 20th of this month to the end of September for a month's rent. It would be almost worth while to take him at his word, and hear how he'd whine if I gave him a cheque for the month's rent only. What are those two famous items out of last year's bill?"
"Brunswick varnish, for the kitchen coal-scuttle, 2d.; and a pair of brass stair-eyes, one lost and one damaged, 2d.," quoted Mrs. Grey seriously, as if the imposition was intolerable.
"Yes, yes. That's it. Brunswick varnish and stair-eyes," laughed Grey. "And at the end of all the items for damage was the general observation: 'The same being in excess of reasonable wear and tear.' Didn't he make us whiten all the ceilings, too, on the grounds that we stopped far into the season and blackened them with the lamps?"
"Yes, Wat."
"Is it three or four times we have paid, Bee, for cracking that soup-tureen? The old crack, you know."
"We've paid, I think, Wat, only twice for that crack, but he has charged us with the ladle every year, although we never had one."
"Why, this old Parkinson is much more amusing than a state-jester of old, and not half so impudent or expensive." Mr. Grey smiled, and rubbed his smooth cheek with his white hand. After a moment's enjoyment of his recollections of Parkinson, he returned to the question. "Well, Bee, will you go down in theRodwellwith me to-morrow evening? We can have a breath of sea-air, a look at Parkinson and the cottage, and come back by the boat in the morning."
"Very well, Wat. Of course I'll go with you."
"Now let me see. The best plan will be for you to go from this to the boat. Be on board at a quarter-past six, and stay there until I come. You won't forget?"
"No, Wat."
"You're quite sure you won't forget?" Of late Mrs. Grey's memory had shown signs of giving way.
"I'll be there, certainly," she answered, a little hotly. "You don't think my memory is so bad I am likely to forget anything that gives me a chance of getting out of this dull house."
"Because," he said, holding up his finger to quiet her displeasure, "I may not be able to get away from the office until just half-past six. I shall be at the boat in time. You will go aboard and sit down aft, and wait for me."
Having thus arranged for the following evening, Grey lapsed into silence, and his wife withdrew.
Those after-dinner hours, which, to the prosperous man are the most placid and full of content, were now to Grey full of fears and subtle agonies when he had no company. The necessity all through the day for showing a fair front to the world and keeping up his reputation for cordial joviality no longer existed when he found himself alone in his own dining-room.
Then he exposed his imagination to all the dangers and difficulties in his path. Here, this 16th of August, was he safe over all the wreck of that awful month of May, but at what a cost? The commission of a disgraceful crime and the perpetual dread of a damning discovery.
The financial crisis had shattered trade, dispersed confidence, and ruined enterprise. The last penny of the baronet's money had been taken, and was gone; and yet no remarkable prosperity, nothing in the meanest way approaching what he had calculated upon, had set in towards him. Even in the recent days of over-trading, when money was dear, the deposits in the Daneford Bank had been more than during the past few months. Things were not likely to mend in time for him. At the present rate twenty years could not bring in half the sum he wanted, and he might be called to disgorge within eighteen months, within a much less time should the old baronet suddenly die and matters take a turn unfavourable to his interest with regard to the guardianship of the heiress—his care over her not reaching, he supposed, beyond her twenty-first birthday. Merciful Heavens! what could deliver him?
And then followed the invariable reply: There is nothing to save you from infamy but marriage with Maud Midharst.
Then the memory of his wife's faults came up before him like an indictment seeking her life. She was flighty, unwise, dull, uncompanionable—intemperate.
She was no pleasure to him. She seemed to be the source of no pleasure to herself. If the Powers of good would only take her, what a blessed relief to him!
If the Powers of any denomination whatever would only take her and leave him free!
He rose, and strode up and down the long room, his face puckered and pinched, his hands clutched, his eyebrows dragged down over his eyes until the eyes disappeared, those eyes wont to be so free and open.
If the Powers of any denomination whatever——His thoughts paused a while, his brows relaxed, his whole face changed character, put on holiday attire. With a light foot and a pleasant smile he approached the chimney-piece and pulled the bell.
"James," he said, when the man entered, "bring me a flask of cognac."
While the servant was going to the cellar he said to himself, with a gentle smile, "I have been very thoughtless about that press in the Tower of Silence. I have left claret and port and sherry there, but until now I never remembered brandy! How careless I have been."
In a few minutes James returned with the bottle, drew the cork, decanted the brandy, and left.
Grey took up the decanter with a cordial smile on his face, walked towards the tower-room, the first-floor room in the Tower of Silence upon the top of which the wasted skeleton of the huge tank stood out clear against the quiet summer stars.
It was now past eleven o'clock. No profounder silence reigned by night in deserted mine deep in the bowels of the earth, in Asian desert open to the glittering stars and the pale radiance of the moon, on the dark peaks of mighty alp that reaches upward into the thin windless air, than in the chambers and passages of the fearful Manor House.
As he draws near the door of the tower-room he carries the decanter of brandy in one hand, a lighted candle in the other. When only a few feet separate him from the door he pauses suddenly, and looks earnestly forward. There are two keys for that door, one is on his ring, the other is in the possession of his wife. He holds the lamp high above his head, and listens intently. Yes; there is someone inside.
While he waits he hears a lock shot. Presently the door opens, and with a cry of surprise and fear his wife confronts him.
"Bee," he says, without allowing the smile to relax, "is this you? I thought you were gone to bed."
"I went to my room," says the unhappy woman, trembling and looking down, "but I could not sleep. I was very nervous and—and, Wat, I thought a glass of port might do me good."
"Of course it will. Of course it will," he says, in a soft voice. "I was just going to put this in the cupboard." He holds up the decanter.
"What is that?" she asks, in a voice full of uneasiness and fear.
"Only a little brandy. It's not a rattlesnake or a petard that you need be afraid of, Bee," he replies, in a bantering tone.
"No, no, Wat," she cries, drawing back a pace and holding up her hands as though she saw some fearful object in her way. "We don't want any brandy here. Indeed we don't."
"What nonsense!" he laughs. "But, seriously, Bee, you know we must have some brandy here. Suppose one of the servants, or any chance caller were to become suddenly faint, what could you do without brandy?"
"Don't put it there, Wat! For my sake, for God's sake, don't put it there!" She covers her face with her hands, and trembles again.
"There now, Bee, go to bed, and don't be silly. I should never be able to forgive myself if any harm came of there being no brandy that could be readily got at."
With slow heavy steps the woman passes him, and, as she reaches the end of the short corridor, throws up her hands to heaven, sobs out, "God be merciful to me!" and bursts into tears.
He waits until she is out of the passage, then shrugs his shoulders, and, with the old, genial smile upon his face deposits the decanter of cognac in the cupboard of the room on the first floor of the tower, of that tower which, in a moment of grim humour, he had called the Tower of Silence.
Mr. Grey breakfasted early, Mrs. Grey late. Nothing was said by either to the other on the night of the 16th. On Friday morning, the morning of the 17th of August, 1866, Mrs. Grey was still sleeping when her husband left the house.
The morning was bright and clear, and as the banker strode on briskly to the city he hummed an air to keep him company. His voice was indifferent, his ear was indifferent, and yet it was more invigorating to hear him blundering out wild approximations to a tune than to listen to a moderately accomplished drawing-room vocalist. The banker seemed unable to keep the natural gladness of his nature within bounds; the accomplished vocalist follows an everyday handicraft or trade with the tools of which he is familiar and expert.
As Grey walked to his office that bright Friday morning he met many friends and acquaintances. He had a nod, a wave of the hand, a cheerful word, a kind enquiry, a jovial wish, a congratulation for each, according to person and circumstances.
He carried his black bag in his hand. In the black bag were some books, some papers, and the revolver. Nothing particular occurred to him on the way to the Bank. Nothing particular awaited him upon his arrival at the office. All was going on smoothly and prosperously—but very slowly, very slowly towards bringing back the baronet's money.
Two was his luncheon hour, and at two he went out. He lunched at his club, and then strolled down to the Chamber of Commerce to see the latest Exchange telegrams, and have a chat with some of the merchants and traders and shipowners of Daneford. He got back to the office at a little after three.
Nothing particular had occurred during his absence. He went into his private room and disposed of some routine affairs. Then, having no business to do, he threw up the window, and looking out, began to whistle softly a recitative of his own invention.
After a little while he stopped whistling, and thought: "I shall be here two hours by myself this evening. I don't think I could do anything better than burn that book." In a little while more he made up his mind. "Yes; I will burn it. It would tell against me in any case. Even suppose by any miracle I am able to get that money together again, the dates would betray me. Then it is better to have neither book nor Stock than a tell-tale book only. Dead men and burnt books tell no tales. Yes; up the chimney it shall go. If I am able to replace that money, the making of a new book will be an easy task, a graceful amusement."
Mr. Grey had always kept the Midharst (Consols) account in his own handwriting, and in a book to which none but himself had access. This was a small book bound in rough calf, having a patent lock and key. Before the Bank closed at four o'clock he went down to the strong-room and took up this book to his private office.
By about half-past four all the clerks had left the office, and Mr. Aldridge had gone out to pick up an appetite for dinner. Grey locked the two doors that led into his office, opened the little ledger, and having cut the book out of the cover, he locked up the cover in a safe in the wall of his own office. There were two reasons for doing this: 1. The cover was, with the appliances at his command, indestructible. 2. He could get new paper bound into the old cover; and those of his staff who were familiar with the outside of the book would not be able to detect any difference between the original and the counterfeit.
When the cover of the book had been concealed under lock and key he sat down in front of the grate, and began tearing up the book into single leaves, and burning each one separately in the empty grate.
As the record of the baronet's twenty years of grinding, exaction, and penurious living changed into flame and smoke and ashes, Grey's thoughts were busy with the awful aspects of his position, and now, for the first time, a new element of fear entered into the case.
He suddenly stopped in his work and looked round him with a ghastly smile. Last night he had been calculating that his only way of avoiding exposure lay through the freedom of himself to marry Maud. But suppose anything were to happen to his wifenow. Suppose she died that very day; suppose she had died a week ago, a month ago; what would have occurred? He should then be a childless widower, younger in appearance and in manner than in years, and even young enough in years to be the suitor of any girl. Was it likely if he were so circumstanced Sir Alexander might not think of altering the will, of introducing into it another guardian, executor, or trustee? True, Sir Alexander was not an ordinary man, and had unlimited confidence in him, Grey; but surely he could not be such a fool as to leave his daughter and his daughter's fortune in the hands solely of a popular, good-looking, and an agreeable widower of forty-five?
The thought flurried him, and he gasped and covered his face with his handkerchief, and leaned upon the mantelpiece.
Last night it had appeared to him nothing more advantageous to his fortune could arise than the death of his wife. Now that event seemed the most disastrous which could befall him. The more he looked at the whole situation the more hopeless his position appeared. What last night he regarded as the gateway to deliverance now was the cavern of ruin. Well, he had begun burning this book, and he might as well finish it. Destroying this could have no important influence for evil on the case, and might be beneficial or have a mitigating influence.
At last the whole book lay in a mass of black and blue ashes at his feet. He stood in front of the pile for a few moments thinking. "Between that book and me there is great similarity. It was once truthful, then it recorded a lie, and now it is burnt and black. I was once honest; I fell; and now my position, my prospects, and my hopes are in ashes. There is no chance of escape."
It was after five o'clock. He rang the bell; as he did so, he heard the street-bell ring also.
"Aldridge coming back from his constitutional." Then, correcting himself, he thought: "Of course, Aldridge doesn't ring."
He unlocked the doors, and in a few minutes the servant knocked and entered.
"I want you to tidy up that grate; I've been burning some old letters," said Grey.
"Yes, sir; a letter for you, sir, just come."
"All right; leave it on my table."
"Beg pardon, sir, but it's from the Castle, and marked immediate."
The banker took it and glanced at the superscription as the servant withdrew.
"From Mrs. Grant," he muttered. "What can it be now?"
He tore open the envelope and read the contents hastily. The note was very brief. Sir Alexander had had a bad night, and was rather worse this morning. He particularly wanted to see Mr. Greyat once. Would Mr. Grey be so good as to comeinstantlyupon receipt of this? The words in italics were underlined heavily three or four times.
"What can this be?" he thought. "The last time I got a note from Mrs. Grant asking me to go to the Castle I was in the final extremity of apprehension, and all came much better than I could have dared to hope. There seems no possibility of a favourable solution of the present situation. If the old man is sinking, that will give me only a year—and that is the least terrible thing can cause this hasty summons. Well, go I must, and at once."
He leaped lightly down the stairs, carrying his bag in his hand, and was soon driving rapidly towards Island Ferry.
Two miles lay between him and the city before he remembered his appointment with his wife on board theRodwell.
"Never mind," he thought, "I'll board the steamboat as she passes the Island; that will make it all right."
By six o'clock he had reached Island Ferry. Without the loss of a moment he crossed over to the Island and ascended towards the Castle.
A servant at once conducted him to Mrs. Grant, who was waiting for him in the hall-room off the grand entrance-hall.
"O Mr. Grey, I am so glad you have come; we are in such fearful anxiety. Poor Sir Alexander has got worse and worse ever since I wrote to you. The doctors say this is what they have been dreading all along."
The little woman was in a state of the greatest excitement, and had completely lost all sense of proportion. The standards of her feelings had been broken by her agitation, and everything that went wrong seemed of equal importance and mischief.
"What is the matter now?" the banker asked, in a soft sympathetic voice. "I hope Miss Midharst," he added, before he gave the little widow time to answer, "is kept as free as possible from these sad and depressing scenes.
"Oh, yes; that is, I mean the poor child is fearfully distressed. She has been with her father all day. It's not good for her, but then she wouldn't come away. I think if you spoke to her it would do her good. She used to mind a good deal what I said to her, but all this day she sits there, staring as if the room was full of ghosts. I fear there's something bad the matter with the whole place; and only for darling Maud, I'm sure I shouldn't stop an hour. And to listen to him is something dreadful. He talks of nothing but his money and you and robbery——"
"What!" exclaimed Grey, loudly and sharply.
"Now," she cried, "you are offended with me just because I am nervous and excitable. Maybeyou'dbe excited yourself, Mr. Grey, if he was turning to you every minute and saying you were a wolf in sheep's clothing, and that you wanted to rob his child of the fortune he had laid by for her. You wouldn't like to be called a robber, and you're a man, and I am only a nervous woman; and men are more used to that kind of language than women, although, until now, I did not know that gentlemen ever used such words."
Here Mrs. Grant broke down completely, and sobbed.
By this time Grey had recovered from the appalling shock caused by Mrs. Grant's association of himself with theft. He went up to the sobbing woman, and in his gentlest accents, having placed his hand reassuringly on her shoulder, said:
"Mrs. Grant, I am exceedingly sorry if my hasty exclamation has caused you any annoyance. Believe me, nothing was further from my intention than to disturb you under the distressing circumstance you describe, and in the very shattered condition in which your nerves must be. Forgive me, pray. Do say that you forgive me."
He pleaded in his most winning voice and manner; he looked upon the friendliness of Mrs. Grant towards him as of great importance.
"It wasn't your fault, Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Grant, quieting her sobs. "I know I am not fit for anything of this kind; it always knocks me up."
"No wonder. Of course, as you say, such expressions are never heard among gentlemen——"
She interrupted him.
"I hope I didn't say anything unbecoming to you; if I did, I didn't mean it. I am so worried and confused I don't know what I'm saying." By this time she had forgotten the cause of her tears. What Grey said made her believe she herself had uttered something offensive to the banker. "I wonder can it be that I have caught the fever from Sir Alexander, and am not in my right mind?"
"No, no, no," laughed Grey reassuringly. "You need not be afraid of that." He had no desire to recall to her memory the words which had drawn from him the abrupt and disconcerting exclamation. "And so," he said, in a bland voice, "poor Sir Alexander's head is wandering."
"Oh, yes. He began to be queer last night, and got worse all the night. This morning we sent for the doctors, and they came again in the afternoon. At the latter visit they said I had better send for you, as you were so much in Sir Alexander's mind, both when he was raving and when he wasn't."
"Then he has lucid intervals?"
"Oh, yes—or, at least, not quite lucid. There are times when he is less wild than others; but I think his mind is not quite free at any time. I have been keeping you here instead of taking you direct to him, as I should have done. You will excuse me; my poor head is quite gone too. Will you come with me to him now?"
"Yes," he answered, with a profound bow.
As he followed her through the dull stately passages that, although it was still full daylight, were dim and funereal, he tried to pierce the veil of the future. How would this sudden development of the old man's disease affect him? Was the old man in his comparatively lucid moments capable of altering his will? What was the cause of the old man's desire to see him? And, above all, how had this idea of theft come upon him?
So far as he could now form an opinion of the case, he did not feel reassured.
Suppose Mrs. Grant's account of the baronet's condition of mind in the less excited moments was overdrawn, and that while in his periods of delirium he was haunted by goblin fears of robbers, in his more collected phases he might be troubled with reasonable dread of theft or misappropriation or fraud. Did the old man desire to destroy or alter his will? That was the vital question. If he did, then surely the lead would overtake the gold.
The gold! That gold could never be won back, not in as many years as it took the baronet to save it up. Not in twice as many years, and he might have no more than one year. The gold could never overtake the lead now—that is, the gold, the Consols.
But the gold of a wedding-ring for Miss Midharst would balance the five-tons weight of the baronet's. Little over half an ounce of gold would outweigh five tons; a ring that cost no more than three guineas would balance a deficit of five hundred and fifty thousand pounds!
Mrs. Grant softly opened the door of the sick chamber, and motioning someone inside to come near, she said, as Miss Midharst approached:
"Maud, dear, here is Mr. Grey; he came at once."
The girl offered him her hand, and Grey took it respectfully, tenderly, and held it, saying:
"I am deeply grieved, Miss Midharst, at what Mrs. Grant tells me. I hope this may be only a temporary affection. How is Sir Alexander now?"
"Oh, he's very, very bad!" sobbed the girl, in a whisper. "It was kind of you to come. He talks of you always."
"I am, believe me, Miss Midharst, deeply grieved for him, and—you."
Nothing could be more kind and sympathetic than his voice and manner.
"He talks of nothing but you and the money," whispered the girl, through her tears.
At that moment a shrill shout came from the bed, followed by the words:
"Ah, Grey, is that you? You thieving scoundrel! Do you dare to come into my house, under my roof, after stealing my darling's fortune! Bring me my pistols, I say—some one bring me my pistols! I will shoot this miscreant banker Grey. My pistols, I say!"
For a moment Grey paused irresolutely on the threshold of the sick room. This was the most alarming ordeal to which he had been subjected. Could it be that by any untoward circumstance of disastrous fate the old man had discovered the truth?
To be loudly, violently accused of the crime he had committed by the man whose money he had stolen, and in the presence of that man's daughter!
He had often in his worst moments imagined the position he now occupied, but had never dared to think of, it had never entered his moments of wildest fear to realise, such a scene conducted in the presence of Miss Midharst and Mrs. Grant. And now to the horrors of hearing such words from the defrauded man's lips, was added the awful question, the appalling uncertainty in the questions: Did the baronet know anything? Did he know all?
His name for honour, for honesty, the existence of the respectable old institution which had been handed down to him by his father unsullied, his very life, hung upon these two questions. There was only one chance between him and ruin, between him and death. At these thoughts he made a prodigious effort, and turning to the two distracted woman with a forced smile, and a lip he could not keep from trembling, said:
"I fear my presence only excites Sir Alexander. Had I not better retire until he is more calm?"
"Oh, Mr. Grey," said Maud through her tears, "you must not mind his words. He does not know what he says. He does not understand what is said to him. He does not even know who is in the room when he is in this state. My poor father, oh, my poor father!" She covered her face with her hands and sobbed out.
Grey began to breathe more freely. He whispered, as though the weight of a mountain were rolling off him, "He does not know what he says. He does not know who is in the room. Poor gentleman! Poor Sir Alexander! I am profoundly sorry for him and for you, Miss Midharst. You can understand how much I was surprised to hear him, who has so long relied upon me, use such words to me. It was, you must admit," he looked from the woman to the girl in deferential appeal, "rather startling."
"We know what he thinks of you when he is in his right senses, Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Grant. "We know he has the greatest confidence in you."
The banker bowed deeply, and when he had straightened himself once more, regarded the widow with profound and sorrowful attention.
Mrs. Grant continued: "In his lucid moments he asked for you, and seemed anxious to see you on business, as of old; but when he raved as he did just now, he accused us all of taking his money."
"What a sad and distracting form of delusion!" murmured the banker. He could scarcely contain himself. He would at that moment have forfeited the five thousand pounds advanced on the mortgage of theRodwellif he might throw his arms into the air and shout out and laugh and dance.
The sick man spoke of everyone as a thief in his frenzy, but in his clear moments spoke of him, Grey, as of old! He did not suspect him exclusively; the indictment to which he had listened in paralysed terror had been by accident preferred against him; by accident it might have been preferred against any other human being with whose name Sir Alexander was familiar!
The weight of earth had rolled back from his breast, and he was breathing more freely than for many a long day.
The three now left the door and walked into the room. At best the vast chamber was gloomy, but now all light but a faint dim glow that clung to the inside of the curtains was excluded.
Grey placed himself at the side of the vast bedstead. Sir Alexander had sold off all his personal furniture; he occupied one of the state rooms and slept in one of the enormous state bedsteads; these bedsteads were in the deeds he could not alter, and had to go down to the next heir. The first look the banker cast at the face of the sick man gave him a shock.
The old baronet had always had a colour in his cheeks; now all the colour was gone from the cheeks and gathered into the temples and forehead. The wrinkled forehead was of a dull brick colour. The great forked dark vein of the forehead stood up out of the dry red skin like the forked mullion of a gothic window, against whose crimson panes the west is red. In the temples of the old man the rugged veins were swollen and knotted, and in the purple hollows between the dark blue knots a quick feeble pulse fluttered and hurried forward like a frightened hunted beast. Through the counterpane the thin form showed sharply. The breathing was quick and unquiet, the eyes staring and fixed upon the carved oak ceiling. Apparently the delirious paroxysm had passed, and the patient was suffering from modified collapse.
"He will be better presently, and may recognise you," whispered Mrs. Grant into Grey's ear. She stood by his side. At the foot stood Maud, weeping softly, silently. For a while no one moved.
Gradually the breathing of the sick man grew more steady, and the fluttering pulse in the hollow temples more regular.
"In a few minutes," whispered the widow, "he will be quite collected."
As she had foretold, his eyes descended from the ceiling and began running over the room and those present, as if trying to recover memory. At length they were fixed on Grey and did not move from him. Although the eye was dull and clouded, there was a look of intelligence in it. It was the eye of a weakened intellect rather than of a disordered one.
"Ah, Grey, is that you?"
"Yes, Sir Alexander. I hope you feel better?"
"I am quite well. I have been greatly troubled about that money, those Consols. They tell me they have been sold. Is it true that my Consols have been sold? I ask you in the presence of my daughter, for whom they were saved, have they been sold?" The sick man's eyes were filmy; but while they were dull to the perception of surrounding objects, they seemed to be partly closed against objects of natural vision only that they might be partly opened to unascertainable forms and figures of supernatural view.
Grey's heart quailed. Who were "they" that had informed him of the fraud? What did the sick man know of the fraud? What did he surmise? Was there anything but imagination to account for these fears, these hideous questions, this awful ordeal? He was sorry he had left his bag below in the little room where Mrs. Grant had received him. Nothing could save him now but a calm exterior and intrepid audacity. He cleared his throat to make sure his voice was obedient to his will, and answered boldly, but softly:
"No one has sold the Consols, Sir Alexander. I answer you faithfully, in your presence and in the presence of Miss Midharst, for whose benefit they have been acquired and put by."
He was amazed himself at the firmness and clearness of his voice. If it had been merely repeating the words of another man, his voice could not have been less open to suspicion; if he had been pronouncing a most consoling truth, his manner could not have been more benignly reassuring. Instead of the words being those of another, they were so intimately his own that his existence depended upon their utterance; instead of being true, they contained a lie so monstrous under the circumstances that they were as false and wicked as a blasphemous false oath. He thought to himself grimly, as he rapidly reviewed the words and the import of his voice: "I am acting in a play of the Devil's writing, and must do honour to the character I represent and credit to the author."
The eyes of the old man were fixed on the banker's face as he said: "What you tell me of my money,hermoney, is quite true? It is quite safe? No one has sold out?"
"It is quite true; no one has sold out."
"Swear it!"
"I swear it."
"Mrs. Grant, get the Book. I am a magistrate, and you shall swear the formal oath, so that you may be punished if you are hiding the truth from an old helpless man."
Mrs. Grant placed a Testament on the bed beside Mr. Grey. The latter took up the Book. He did not care to question the legality of such an oath. He thought he would humour the old man. A crime or two more were nothing to him now, particularly when these crimes helped to cover up the other crime of embezzlement, theft, fraud—call it what you will.
Mr. Grey took up the Testament, and Sir Alexander, in a confused way, repeated words which could not be clearly heard, but ended with the clause usual to the ending of a formal oath.
Mr. Grey kissed the Book reverentially, and murmured the final words. As he uttered the words, he could not avoid the reflection that if he were acting in a play of the Devil's writing, some of the words to be uttered had a peculiar aspect as coming from the Master of Evil.
Mr. Grey put the Book on the bed, and looked with reassuring glance at both the women. The old baronet muttered to himself indistinctly for a few seconds. "Bad dreams, bad dreams," he said distinctly at last; "they were only dreams."
Mr. Grey looked round again at the women and inclined his head significantly to them, as though he would say: "Poor Sir Alexander! His dreams must have been bad indeed, if he fancied anyone had taken his money."
By this the great flush had disappeared from the old man's forehead, the veins had subsided, and a deadly pallor covered his features from forehead to chin. During the paroxysms of his delirium, it seemed as though his head was in danger of bursting from too great a supply of heated blood; now it looked as if the walls of his skull and the flesh of his face were about to crumble and fall in for want of fluid sufficient to sustain their weight. But in the eye still lingered the heat and flickered the fire of the fever. He lay still for a while, and seemed to be about to fall asleep. Presently, however, all were startled to hear his voice ring out clear and firm, high above their notion of his present strength, clear above their notion of his intellectual capacity:
"Henry Grey, take her hand, my daughter's hand, and lead her here—no the other hand—give her your left hand, Henry Grey."
Mr. Grey walked to where the girl stood, now pale and tearless, at the foot of the bed, and offered her his right hand; then his left, and led her to the side of the bed, where he had been standing.
"Now, Henry Grey, take the Testament in your right hand. I am going to make you swear—I am a deputy-lieutenant—to guard with all your power and wiles, my only daughter, Maud Midharst, herself and her fortune and her happiness. Say the words after me."
"Herself and her fortune and her happiness to guard with all my power," he repeated.
"All your power and wiles," insisted the old man, in a tone of exasperation.
"My power and—wiles," repeated Mr. Grey, after a slight hesitation.
"To act as executor of my will, trustee to her fortune, and guardian of my child. So help me, God."
Mr. Grey repeated the words with solemn deliberation.
"Kiss the Book."
Mr. Grey bent his head reverentially over the sacred volume and kissed it devoutly.
"Kiss the Book, my child. Take it in your own right hand and kiss it. It is the history of the life and sufferings and death of our Lord, and something of great moment is conducting."
"Kiss the Book, you also," looking towards Mrs. Grant.
She did as he desired.
"Now, my daughter, and you, Henry Grey, both together hold that Book, which is the history of the life and sufferings and death of our Lord, to my lips, for I am weak and unable, and I will kiss it last of all."
They placed the Book against his lips, and when he had kissed it they drew it back, and placed the Testament on the bed.
Mr. Grey folded his arms tightly across his chest; he had a feeling that his chest would burst if he did not shout out and relieve it.
"My daughter," said the sick man, "if I should never get off this bed again—and I feel that something great is conducting—when I am dead you will look to him for all advice and guidance. He will be your friend, your only friend, who can be of aid to you when I am dead. You will lean upon him. He will guard your money and see that no one does you ill or cheats you. He is an honest man, Maud. He has taken care of your fortune for me until now; he will take care of it for you when I am dead. You will have no one else but him; no friend in all the world but Henry Grey."
"Oh, my God!" burst from the banker. If the hangman were in the room, and any word spoken by him, Grey, was to be the signal for his death, he could not restrain himself.
For a moment they all three looked at him in grave surprise. His words were not perhaps improper to the grave occasion, but his manner of uttering them had something startling in it. There was in his tone a cry of wild appeal against an inexorable decree of prodigious woe. His voice had more the sound of a brute's inarticulate cry of despair than any human agony fitted to human words. It was a death-cry, the death-cry of some fine instinct of the human soul. It was a cry the like of which no man utters twice in a lifetime.
The old man regarded the banker for a moment with a look of surprise. Then the expression of the old man's face softened, and he said: "Grey, my arm is weak. I cannot raise it. Take my hand. You will be good to her when I am dead. I know what the world may say. It may say, Grey, that you and I are not equals; that I might have bestowed the guardianship of my daughter's fortune among houses such as the Fleureys' or the Midharsts'. But I know what you are and what your father was, and I am placing what I value above all earthly things in your keeping. I am an old man, and the doctors may be right this time. I am old and weak, Henry Grey, and I want you to be her friend when I am dead. The world may say what it pleases about you as guardian. I am firm in my faith in you. No orphan, friendless—the last, I may say, of her house—had ever a more careful or prudent or wise guardian than you. I am old and weak. There is one more favour I would ask of you before you go—for I have said all. You will not refuse an old man on his death-bed, Henry Grey?"
"No," in a faint thin whisper.
"I am weak, and cannot do it myself. Raise up my hand held in yours, and place your hand against my lips, that I may kiss the hand which is to shield my daughter when I am gone."
"Oh, Sir Alexander!" in a tone of agonized protest.
"I am very old and very weak. You will not, because I am old and weak and cannot raise your hand, deny me this pleasure."
The banker did as he was asked.
When he had placed the cold thin hand back again on the bed, the baronet sighed and murmured: "I am tired. I will try to sleep awhile. You may go, Henry Grey. God bless you, Henry Grey! Now I am at rest!"
With a deep bow to the ladies, Mr. Grey left the room. He went down a passage and then turned into another. Here he was alone, out of sight and earshot. He threw his arms heavily up, straight above his head, and flung himself against the wall with a groan, beat his arms and hands against the wall, and struck his forehead against the wall.
"Do I live?" he cried; "or am I already among the damned?"
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, GREAT NEW STREET, FETTER LANE, E.C.