"Ah, Grey, is that you? You thieving scoundrel! Do you dare to come into my house, under my roof, after stealing my darling's fortune! Bring me my pistols, I say—some one bring me my pistols! I will shoot this miscreant banker Grey. My pistols, I say!"
CHAPTER XI.
BY THE STATE BED.
For a moment Grey paused irresolutely on the threshold of the sick room. This was the most alarming ordeal to which he had been subjected. Could it be that by any untoward circumstance of disastrous fate the old man had discovered the truth?
To be loudly, violently accused of the crime he had committed by the man whose money he had stolen, and in the presence of that man's daughter!
He had often in his worst moments imagined the position he now occupied, but had never dared to think of, it had never entered his moments of wildest fear to realise, such a scene conducted in the presence of Miss Midharst and Mrs. Grant. And now to the horrors of hearing such words from the defrauded man's lips, was added the awful question, the appalling uncertainty in the questions: Did the baronet know anything? Did he know all?
His name for honour, for honesty, the existence of the respectable old institution which had been handed down to him by his father unsullied, his very life, hung upon these two questions. There was only one chance between him and ruin, between him and death. At these thoughts he made a prodigious effort, and turning to the two distracted woman with a forced smile, and a lip he could not keep from trembling, said:
"I fear my presence only excites Sir Alexander. Had I not better retire until he is more calm?"
"Oh, Mr. Grey," said Maud through her tears, "you must not mind his words. He does not know what he says. He does not understand what is said to him. He does not even know who is in the room when he is in this state. My poor father, oh, my poor father!" She covered her face with her hands and sobbed out.