Grey began to breathe more freely. He whispered, as though the weight of a mountain were rolling off him, "He does not know what he says. He does not know who is in the room. Poor gentleman! Poor Sir Alexander! I am profoundly sorry for him and for you, Miss Midharst. You can understand how much I was surprised to hear him, who has so long relied upon me, use such words to me. It was, you must admit," he looked from the woman to the girl in deferential appeal, "rather startling."
"We know what he thinks of you when he is in his right senses, Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Grant. "We know he has the greatest confidence in you."
The banker bowed deeply, and when he had straightened himself once more, regarded the widow with profound and sorrowful attention.
Mrs. Grant continued: "In his lucid moments he asked for you, and seemed anxious to see you on business, as of old; but when he raved as he did just now, he accused us all of taking his money."
"What a sad and distracting form of delusion!" murmured the banker. He could scarcely contain himself. He would at that moment have forfeited the five thousand pounds advanced on the mortgage of the Rodwell if he might throw his arms into the air and shout out and laugh and dance.
The sick man spoke of everyone as a thief in his frenzy, but in his clear moments spoke of him, Grey, as of old! He did not suspect him exclusively; the indictment to which he had listened in paralysed terror had been by accident preferred against him; by accident it might have been preferred against any other human being with whose name Sir Alexander was familiar!
The weight of earth had rolled back from his breast, and he was breathing more freely than for many a long day.
The three now left the door and walked into the room. At best the vast chamber was gloomy, but now all light but a faint dim glow that clung to the inside of the curtains was excluded.
Grey placed himself at the side of the vast bedstead. Sir Alexander had sold off all his personal furniture; he occupied one of the state rooms and slept in one of the enormous state bedsteads; these bedsteads were in the deeds he could not alter, and had to go down to the next heir. The first look the banker cast at the face of the sick man gave him a shock.
The old baronet had always had a colour in his cheeks; now all the colour was gone from the cheeks and gathered into the temples and forehead. The wrinkled forehead was of a dull brick colour. The great forked dark vein of the forehead stood up out of the dry red skin like the forked mullion of a gothic window, against whose crimson panes the west is red. In the temples of the old man the rugged veins were swollen and knotted, and in the purple hollows between the dark blue knots a quick feeble pulse fluttered and hurried forward like a frightened hunted beast. Through the counterpane the thin form showed sharply. The breathing was quick and unquiet, the eyes staring and fixed upon the carved oak ceiling. Apparently the delirious paroxysm had passed, and the patient was suffering from modified collapse.