“What note?” his wife asked, and the judge replied, “Lord Harry, is your memory so short? You was going to send her a nicely worded note of thanks, and I was to give her a present at Christmas, and we didn’t do neither, but ’tain’t too late. Their house is to be sold, they must live somewhere, and I b’lieve I’ll let ’em have that house in White’s Row, where they used to live, free, if they want it. Yes, sir, that’ll be better than the bellus thing, and will be heaping coals. Yes, sir!”
Just why he was to heap coals, unless it were that Louie had refused his son, was not clear to him; but having decided on the house in White’s Row, he went to bed in a much calmer frame of mind than Herbert, who sat through nearly the entire night, reviewing the past as connected with Louie, and feeling that life could never be again to him just what it had been when she was his guiding star. There was much for which he blamed himself—much for which he was sorry, and yet—he could not help the little word yet, which came stealing into his mind with a suggestion that the present condition of things was better than the old. His father knew all, and had not annihilated him. Then, Mr. Grey might die. He did not quite believe he hoped he would; but, if he should, and the disgrace be forgotten, and Louie get over the Quixotic idea of the stage, and paying the debts, which would take so many years, she might come back to him, and he be able to take her, without fear of his father or the world.
There was comfort in this, and his heart was not quite as sore, or the world as dark, when, just as it was growing light, he fell into a troubled sleep.
CHAPTER XVII
THE SHADOW OF DEATH
Mr. Grey had been so impressed with a conviction that his creditors would proceed against him and was so nervous on the subject that Louie decided to tell him that nothing was to be done. This was the morning after the meeting, when his mind seemed clearer and he said to her, “What are they doing about me? I mean, will they proceed against me? They can, you know.”
“No,” Louie replied. “Some of them are a good deal excited, of course; but they will do nothing. I have that from the best authority, so, don’t worry any more.”
“They are kind,” he answered, “to leave me in peace. I am punished enough with my conscience, which goads me like so many demons.”
He was silent a moment and then his eyes grew brighter again, with an expression Louie did not like, and his old comical smile played round his mouth as he said,
“It would be a big thing to send a dying man to prison, wouldn’t it? and do a lot of good. I deserve it, though, but am glad not to go. And now, cover me up. I am very cold all the time—some like Harry Gill, you know, shivering with his three coats and I don’t know how many blankets.”
He laughed again—a laugh pitiful to see; and Louie covered him up and wiped the cold sweat from his face, and sat down beside him with a sinking heart as she saw how fast he was failing, both bodily and mentally. The strain he had endured for years, with the recent excitement, was telling fearfully upon a constitution never very strong. As the days went by he asked no questions about the business, and answered none very coherently, but lay all day with his eyes closed as if asleep. Louie knew he was not sleeping, for if she left the room he always looked after her, and smiled when she came back. Once, when he heard the sound of wheels in the lane, he said to her: