CHAPTER XXX
"I?" asked Gilbert.
"Yes," Francis Eversleigh replied, with some decision. "I can do nothing. In fact, I am physically and mentally unfit to do anything of importance at present. The discovery of the secret chamber, indicating as it must that Silwood is alive, supplied me with a sort of stimulus, but that is passing off, and I feel as weak and helpless as a child. I feel," he went on, while he slowly put his hand to his forehead, "as if I were going mad. It is an awful feeling!"
"Father!"
"Oh," cried Eversleigh, "this business will be the death of me! I know it!"
These words, Gilbert told himself, were caused by the reaction to which his father had alluded, and were not to be taken literally, but he gazed solicitously at the other.
"No wonder you are depressed, father," he said, in a sympathetic tone. "Well, I'll go to Italy," he added in another voice.
"That's right! Don't mind me! You must go at once, my boy."
"Yes, but what about Bennet? We have rather lost sight of him, have we not?"
"I think we need not consider Bennet at the moment. I shall answer his lawyer and say you are willing to be retained for Bennet's defence."