Silas Monk was taken back to his tumble-down dwelling in the dismal row, and was tended with all possible care by his devoted grand-daughter. His recovery to a certain point was rapid. But the mental condition was curiously impaired. His brain had lost its force; no recollection of the past survived. His memory seemed to have fled into darkness, and to be resting there and sleeping—a darkness into which it was safer not to admit a single ray of light. This was the bitter irony displayed by nature when granting to this old miser a further extension to his lease of life. For time out of mind, Silas Monk had been governed by a master-passion—his only thought that of hoarding gold. The glitter, like sunlight, had pierced his cold heart, and had helped to keep it beating; and it would almost seem as though the warmth which this gold had driven into his veins still lingered there, and helped to sustain vitality, even when the memory which had given birth to all this agitation was dead.
It had been thought advisable by those who study the mysterious workings of the mind, that gold should be concealed from the sight of Silas Monk, and, if possible, even the sound of it, in order that his memory might rest dormant and his life be prolonged.
One evening the old man was seated in his armchair before the fire, with closed eyes. Rachel sat on a low stool at his feet, holding his hand. On the other side of the hearth was Walter Tiltcroft.
‘Walter,’ said the girl in a low voice, ‘you hardly know how happy I am, now that grandfather can give me all his love. He thinks no more about his’——She stopped, and looked up at her grandfather’s face, frightened that even the mention of gold should reach his ears.
‘Ah!’ cried Walter with a sigh, ‘how many are there, I wonder, in this old city whose minds would be less disturbed if that precious word was forbidden to be uttered in their presence? Does not your grandfather already look less pale and haggard than he did a few weeks ago?’
‘Indeed, he does,’ replied Rachel. ‘He remembers both of us when we are near him. He seems to need nothing now except our affection.’
Walter took the girl’s disengaged hand and said: ‘Rachel! Let me be near you and him. Why should we not be one, and watch over grandfather together?’
At the young man’s words, a look of rapture crossed the girl’s face. ‘Dear Walter,’ cried she, ‘that is all I wish for in this world!’ She spoke like a true and tender woman—from her heart. Seated there by that homely fireside, with the only two beings who were dear to her, she never thought, or cared to think, that all the gold which Walter Tiltcroft and the detective had found in the vault below the strong-room in Crutched Friars would one day belong to her—that, when her grandfather died, she would be a great heiress—worth, indeed, some thousands of pounds. All she thought of, with that look of rapture in her face, was that she had gained Walter Tiltcroft’s love.
Meanwhile, Joe Grimrood having been accused of the robbery in Crutched Friars, was tried, and convicted. Thereupon, he made a full confession. For some days before committing the theft, he had watched Silas Monk from the scaffolding, after the rest of the workmen had gone. Through a chink in the old shutter he had observed every movement of the old miser. He had seen Silas Monk raise the trap-door which led into the vault; he had seen him descend with his lantern, and bring up bag after bag of gold, and pour it out on the desk before him. Watching in Crutched Friars, after having been shown to the door by Walter Tiltcroft, he had seen the young clerk leave the premises. Re-entering the house by means of a key which he had taken the precaution to forge, he had gone straight to the strong-room, where he had met with unexpected resistance. Silas Monk had displayed, according to Grimrood’s statement, almost supernatural strength; defending his gold as a tigress defends her young ones, with a savage leap at the workman’s throat. When utterly exhausted, Grimrood had carried Silas down into the vault and had closed the trap-door upon him. Then, having placed all the gold with which the desk was covered, into the bags, the burglar had decamped, making his way to the docks, and securing a berth on board an emigrant ship which was on the point of departure for the high seas.