Before nine o'clock, Lady Ellinor arrived, and went straight into Miss Trevanion's room. I took refuge in my uncle's. Roland was awake and calm, but so feeble that he made no effort to rise; and it was his calm, indeed, that alarmed me the most—it was like the calm of nature thoroughly exhausted. He obeyed me mechanically, as a patient takes from your hand the draught, of which he is almost unconscious, when I pressed him to take food. He smiled on me faintly when I spoke to him; but made me a sign that seemed to implore silence. Then he turned his face from me, and buried it in the pillow; and I thought that he slept again, when, raising himself a little, and feeling for my hand, he said in a scarcely audible voice,—
"Where is he?"
"Would you see him, sir?"
"No, no; that would kill me—and then—what would become of him?"
"He has promised me an interview, and in that interview I feel assured he will obey your wishes, whatever they are."
Roland made no answer.
"Lord Castleton has arranged all, so that his name and madness (thus let us call it) will never be known."
"Pride, pride! pride still!"—murmured the old soldier. "The name, the name—well, that is much; but the living soul!—I wish Austin were here."
"I have sent for him, sir."
Roland pressed my hand, and was again silent. Then he began to mutter, as I thought, incoherently, about "the Peninsula and obeying orders; and how some officer woke Lord Wellesley at night, and said that something or other (I could not catch what—the phrase was technical and military) was impossible; and how Lord Wellesley asked 'Where's the order-book?' and looking into the order-book, said, 'Not at all impossible, for it is in the order-book;' and so Lord Wellesley turned round and went to sleep again." Then suddenly Roland half rose, and said in a voice clear and firm, "But Lord Wellesley, though a great captain, was a fallible man, sir, and the order-book was his own mortal handiwork.—Get me the Bible!"