‘My God! He’s clean gone mad!’ said Jones, staring at him with starting eyes. ‘Dished and done up in ten minutes! That’s what I call going to Bedlam by express.’
Although Grosket uttered not a word of comment, his keen gray eye, bright as a diamond; his puckered brows; his compressed lips, and his hands tightly clasped together, showed that he viewed his work with emotions of the most powerful kind. At length he said, in low tone, as if communing with himself rather than addressing the only person who seemed capable of hearing him: ‘If he goes mad he’ll spoil my scheme. He’ll not reap the whole harvest that I have sown for him. He must live; ay, and in his sane mind, to feel its full bitterness. I, I have lived,’ said he, striking his breast; ‘I have borne up against the same curse that now is on him. I have had the same feeling gnawing at my heart, giving me no rest, no peace. He must suffer. He must not take refuge from himself in madness. He shall not,’ said he, savagely. ‘Ha! ha! who would have thought that the flint which the old fellow calls his heart had feeling in it?’
Whether these remarks reached Rust’s ear, or whether it was that his mind, after the first shock of the intelligence was over, was beginning to rally, is a matter of doubt; but from some cause or other, he suddenly discontinued his singing, passed his hand across his forehead, held his long hair back from his face, and stared about him; his eye wandering from Grosket to Jones, and around the room, and then resting on the floor. He sat for some time looking steadfastly down, his face gradually regaining its stern, unbending character; his thin lips compressing themselves, until his mouth had assumed its usual expression of bitterness, mingled with resolution.
The two men watched, without speaking, the progress of this metamorphosis. At last he rose, and turning to Grosket, said in a calm voice:
‘You’ve done your worst; yet you see Michael Rust can bear it;’ and then bowing to him, he said: ‘Good bye, Enoch. Whatever may have happened to my child, I am blameless. I never sold her happiness to gratify my avarice. If she has become what Enoch’s child was, the sin does not lie at my door. I don’t know how it is with you.’
Turning to Jones, he said, in the same quiet tone: ‘Murderer of your bosom-friend, good bye.’ The door closed, and he was gone.
A bitter execration from the two men followed him. From Jones, it burst forth in unbridled fury, and he sprang forward to avenge the taunt, but was withheld by Grosket, who grasped his arm, then as suddenly relinquished his hold, and said:
‘Quick! quick! Jones. Drag him back! It concerns your safety and my plans to get him back.’
The man dashed to the door and down the stairs. In a moment he reäppeared:
‘It’s too late. He’s in the street.’