Cuthbert judged it best to comply, and Guy lay quite still and listened.
“Ha!” he said finally; “there’s a chance then for us.”
He smiled his secretive, self-reliant smile, and said nothing further; but in a few minutes more he beckoned Cuthbert close, and grasped his arm, as if in agony beyond control. But he mastered himself at last.
“I will not go crazy!” he muttered, and, at length, clinging to the hand that seemed to hold him back from the abyss, he fell asleep.
The young vicar of the parish came to offer help, and the family solicitor, Mr Manton, arrived on the next morning, much hurt that his old client should have made a second will without applying to him. He interviewed his Rilston brother, and even hinted a question as to the old lady’s faculties; but every one in the house answered for her full possession of these to the last. He managed the arrangements for the funeral, which was to take place on the Tuesday, at Ingleby, a short service being held first in the old church at Waynflete. This was the vicar’s proposal, and by Guy’s desire, it was accepted.
“I shall be able to go on Tuesday,” he said; “and, Cuthbert, I want you to send for a beautiful white wreath for me. Yes; I know Aunt Margaret disapproved of flowers, but I want this one.”
In spite of this disapproval, when a wreath of deep-coloured autumn flowers came from Constancy, “more like her than white flowers, and in memory of an intercourse, unlike every other to me;” there was no question as to its use.
Rawdie, miserable in the changed house, took refuge in Guy’s room.
“We can sympathise,” said Guy, with an odd look; and he liked to have his hand on the long, hairy slug, as Rawdie lay stretched out beside him.
Rawdie’s master kept away until the Monday evening, when Guy sent for him, and he went reluctantly, and with secret dread.