The eyes of the old man were fixed on the banker's face as he said: "What you tell me of my money, her money, is quite true? It is quite safe? No one has sold out?"
"It is quite true; no one has sold out."
"Swear it!"
"I swear it."
"Mrs. Grant, get the Book. I am a magistrate, and you shall swear the formal oath, so that you may be punished if you are hiding the truth from an old helpless man."
Mrs. Grant placed a Testament on the bed beside Mr. Grey. The latter took up the Book. He did not care to question the legality of such an oath. He thought he would humour the old man. A crime or two more were nothing to him now, particularly when these crimes helped to cover up the other crime of embezzlement, theft, fraud—call it what you will.
Mr. Grey took up the Testament, and Sir Alexander, in a confused way, repeated words which could not be clearly heard, but ended with the clause usual to the ending of a formal oath.
Mr. Grey kissed the Book reverentially, and murmured the final words. As he uttered the words, he could not avoid the reflection that if he were acting in a play of the Devil's writing, some of the words to be uttered had a peculiar aspect as coming from the Master of Evil.
Mr. Grey put the Book on the bed, and looked with reassuring glance at both the women. The old baronet muttered to himself indistinctly for a few seconds. "Bad dreams, bad dreams," he said distinctly at last; "they were only dreams."
Mr. Grey looked round again at the women and inclined his head significantly to them, as though he would say: "Poor Sir Alexander! His dreams must have been bad indeed, if he fancied anyone had taken his money."