"He will be better presently, and may recognise you," whispered Mrs. Grant into Grey's ear. She stood by his side. At the foot stood Maud, weeping softly, silently. For a while no one moved.
Gradually the breathing of the sick man grew more steady, and the fluttering pulse in the hollow temples more regular.
"In a few minutes," whispered the widow, "he will be quite collected."
As she had foretold, his eyes descended from the ceiling and began running over the room and those present, as if trying to recover memory. At length they were fixed on Grey and did not move from him. Although the eye was dull and clouded, there was a look of intelligence in it. It was the eye of a weakened intellect rather than of a disordered one.
"Ah, Grey, is that you?"
"Yes, Sir Alexander. I hope you feel better?"
"I am quite well. I have been greatly troubled about that money, those Consols. They tell me they have been sold. Is it true that my Consols have been sold? I ask you in the presence of my daughter, for whom they were saved, have they been sold?" The sick man's eyes were filmy; but while they were dull to the perception of surrounding objects, they seemed to be partly closed against objects of natural vision only that they might be partly opened to unascertainable forms and figures of supernatural view.
Grey's heart quailed. Who were "they" that had informed him of the fraud? What did the sick man know of the fraud? What did he surmise? Was there anything but imagination to account for these fears, these hideous questions, this awful ordeal? He was sorry he had left his bag below in the little room where Mrs. Grant had received him. Nothing could save him now but a calm exterior and intrepid audacity. He cleared his throat to make sure his voice was obedient to his will, and answered boldly, but softly:
"No one has sold the Consols, Sir Alexander. I answer you faithfully, in your presence and in the presence of Miss Midharst, for whose benefit they have been acquired and put by."
He was amazed himself at the firmness and clearness of his voice. If it had been merely repeating the words of another man, his voice could not have been less open to suspicion; if he had been pronouncing a most consoling truth, his manner could not have been more benignly reassuring. Instead of the words being those of another, they were so intimately his own that his existence depended upon their utterance; instead of being true, they contained a lie so monstrous under the circumstances that they were as false and wicked as a blasphemous false oath. He thought to himself grimly, as he rapidly reviewed the words and the import of his voice: "I am acting in a play of the Devil's writing, and must do honour to the character I represent and credit to the author."