“Well, it might do you good, Sir Giles, a little later—when the weather’s better.”
Sir Giles made no reply, but Dunning heard him muttering: “She always says there’s nothing certain in this world.”
Mr. Pownceby came as quick as the railway could bring him.
“Is there anything wrong?” he asked of Mrs. Piercey, who met him at the door.
“Oh, I am afraid he’s very bad,” said Patty; “I am afraid he’s not long for this world.”
“Why does he want me? Does he want to change his will?”
“I don’t know—I don’t know. Oh, Mr. Pownceby, I don’t know how to say it. I am afraid he is disappointed: that—that you said to me last time——”
“Was not true, I suppose?” said the father of a family, who was not without his experiences, and he looked somewhat sternly at Patty, who was trembling.
“I never said it was,” she said. “It was not I. He took it into his head, and I did not know how to contradict him. Oh, don’t say to him it’s not true! rather, rather let him believe it now. Let him die happy, Mr. Pownceby! Oh, he has been so good to me! Say anything to make him die happy!” Patty cried.
The lawyer was angry and disappointed, too; but Patty’s feeling was evidently genuine, and he could not help feeling a certain sympathy with her. Sir Giles was sitting up in bed, ashy white with that pallor of old age which is scarcely increased by death.