Bexley was the only man-servant left at Ashlydyat. Short work is generally made of the dispersion of a household when the means come to an end, as they had with the Godolphins: and there had been no difficulty in finding places for the excellent servants of Ashlydyat. Bexley had stoutly refused to go. He didn’t want wages, he said, but he was not going to leave his master, so long as—— Bexley did not say so long as what, but they had understood him. So long as his master was in life.
Thomas began to revive. He slowly opened his eyes, and raised his hand to wipe the moisture from his white face. On the table before him lay one of the letters open. Janet recognized the handwriting as that of George.
She spurned the letter from her. With a gesture of grievous vexation, her hand pushed it across the table. “It is that which has affected you!” she cried out, with a wail.
“Not so,” breathed Thomas. “It was the pain here.”
He touched himself below the chest; in the place where the pain had come before. Which pain had seized upon him?—the mental agony arising from George’s conduct, or the physical agony of his disease? Probably somewhat of both.
He stretched out his hand towards the letter, making a motion that it should be folded. Bexley, who could not have read a word without his glasses had it been to save his life, took up the letter, folded it, and placed it in its envelope. Thomas’s mind then seemed at rest, and he closed his eyes again.
Mr. Snow soon reached Ashlydyat. “Another attack, I hear,” he began, in his unceremonious salutation. “Bothered into it, no doubt. Bexley says it came on when he was reading letters.”
With the wan white look upon his face, with the moisture of pain still upon his brow, lay Thomas Godolphin. He was on the sofa now; but he partially rose from it and assumed a sitting posture when the surgeon entered.
A few professional questions and answers, and then Mr. Snow began to grumble. “Did I not warn you that you must have perfect tranquillity?” cried he. “Rest of body and of mind.”
“You did. But how am I to have it? Even now, I ought to be at the Bank, facing the trouble there.”