John Trevanion bowed without a word. It was true enough. The elder Blake would perhaps have been of still less use in stemming the passionate tide of the sick man’s fury, but at least he would have struggled against it. They walked up to the house almost without exchanging another word. In the hall they were met by Madam Trevanion, upon whom the constant watching had begun to tell. Her eyes were red, and there were deep lines under them. All the lines of her face were drawn and haggard. She met the new-comer with an anxious welcome, as if he had been a messenger of good and not of evil.
“I am very glad you have come, Mr. Blake. Thank you for being so prompt. My husband perhaps, after he has seen you, will be calmer and able to rest. Will you come to his room at once?”
If he had been about to secure her a fortune she could not have been more anxious to introduce him. She came back to the hall after she had led him to Mr. Trevanion’s room.
“I am restless,” she said; “I cannot be still. Do you know, for the first time he has sent me away. He will not have me with him. Before, whatever he might have against me was forgotten when he needed me. God grant that this interview he is so anxious for may compose him and put things on their old footing.”
Perhaps it was only her agitation and distress, but as she spoke the tears came and choked her voice. John Trevanion came up to her, and laying his hands upon her shoulders gazed into her face.
“Grace,” he said, “is it possible that you can be sincere?”
“Sincere!” she cried, looking at him with a strange incomprehension. She had no room in her mind for metaphysical questions, and she was impatient of them at such a crisis of fate.
“Yes, sincere. You know that man has come for some evil purpose. Whatever they say or do together it will be to your hurt, you know; and yet you hasten his coming, and tell him you are glad when he arrives—”
“And you think it must be false? No, it is not false, John,” she said, with a faint smile. “So long as he does it and gets it off his mind, what is it to me? Do you know that he is perhaps dying? I have nursed him and been the only one that he would have near him for years. Do you think I care what happens after? But I cannot bear to be put out of my own place now.”
“Your own place! to bear all his caprices and abuse!”