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As he draws near the door of the tower-room he carries the decanter of brandy in one hand, a lighted candle in the other. When only a few feet separate him from the door he pauses suddenly, and looks earnestly forward. There are two keys for that door, one is on his ring, the other is in the possession of his wife. He holds the lamp high above his head, and listens intently. Yes; there is someone inside.

While he waits he hears a lock shot. Presently the door opens, and with a cry of surprise and fear his wife confronts him.

"Bee," he says, without allowing the smile to relax, "is this you? I thought you were gone to bed."

"I went to my room," says the unhappy woman, trembling and looking down, "but I could not sleep. I was very nervous and – and, Wat, I thought a glass of port might do me good."

"Of course it will. Of course it will," he says, in a soft voice. "I was just going to put this in the cupboard." He holds up the decanter.

"What is that?" she asks, in a voice full of uneasiness and fear.

"Only a little brandy. It's not a rattlesnake or a petard that you need be afraid of, Bee," he replies, in a bantering tone.

"No, no, Wat," she cries, drawing back a pace and holding up her hands as though she saw some fearful object in her way. "We don't want any brandy here. Indeed we don't."

"What nonsense!" he laughs. "But, seriously, Bee, you know we must have some brandy here. Suppose one of the servants, or any chance caller were to become suddenly faint, what could you do without brandy?"

"Don't put it there, Wat! For my sake, for God's sake, don't put it there!" She covers her face with her hands, and trembles again.

"There now, Bee, go to bed, and don't be silly. I should never be able to forgive myself if any harm came of there being no brandy that could be readily got at."

With slow heavy steps the woman passes him, and, as she reaches the end of the short corridor, throws up her hands to heaven, sobs out, "God be merciful to me!" and bursts into tears.

He waits until she is out of the passage, then shrugs his shoulders, and, with the old, genial smile upon his face deposits the decanter of cognac in the cupboard of the room on the first floor of the tower, of that tower which, in a moment of grim humour, he had called the Tower of Silence.

CHAPTER X
ON THE THRESHOLD OF DEATH

Mr. Grey breakfasted early, Mrs. Grey late. Nothing was said by either to the other on the night of the 16th. On Friday morning, the morning of the 17th of August, 1866, Mrs. Grey was still sleeping when her husband left the house.

The morning was bright and clear, and as the banker strode on briskly to the city he hummed an air to keep him company. His voice was indifferent, his ear was indifferent, and yet it was more invigorating to hear him blundering out wild approximations to a tune than to listen to a moderately accomplished drawing-room vocalist. The banker seemed unable to keep the natural gladness of his nature within bounds; the accomplished vocalist follows an everyday handicraft or trade with the tools of which he is familiar and expert.

As Grey walked to his office that bright Friday morning he met many friends and acquaintances. He had a nod, a wave of the hand, a cheerful word, a kind enquiry, a jovial wish, a congratulation for each, according to person and circumstances.

He carried his black bag in his hand. In the black bag were some books, some papers, and the revolver. Nothing particular occurred to him on the way to the Bank. Nothing particular awaited him upon his arrival at the office. All was going on smoothly and prosperously – but very slowly, very slowly towards bringing back the baronet's money.

Two was his luncheon hour, and at two he went out. He lunched at his club, and then strolled down to the Chamber of Commerce to see the latest Exchange telegrams, and have a chat with some of the merchants and traders and shipowners of Daneford. He got back to the office at a little after three.

Nothing particular had occurred during his absence. He went into his private room and disposed of some routine affairs. Then, having no business to do, he threw up the window, and looking out, began to whistle softly a recitative of his own invention.

After a little while he stopped whistling, and thought: "I shall be here two hours by myself this evening. I don't think I could do anything better than burn that book." In a little while more he made up his mind. "Yes; I will burn it. It would tell against me in any case. Even suppose by any miracle I am able to get that money together again, the dates would betray me. Then it is better to have neither book nor Stock than a tell-tale book only. Dead men and burnt books tell no tales. Yes; up the chimney it shall go. If I am able to replace that money, the making of a new book will be an easy task, a graceful amusement."

Mr. Grey had always kept the Midharst (Consols) account in his own handwriting, and in a book to which none but himself had access. This was a small book bound in rough calf, having a patent lock and key. Before the Bank closed at four o'clock he went down to the strong-room and took up this book to his private office.

By about half-past four all the clerks had left the office, and Mr. Aldridge had gone out to pick up an appetite for dinner. Grey locked the two doors that led into his office, opened the little ledger, and having cut the book out of the cover, he locked up the cover in a safe in the wall of his own office. There were two reasons for doing this: 1. The cover was, with the appliances at his command, indestructible. 2. He could get new paper bound into the old cover; and those of his staff who were familiar with the outside of the book would not be able to detect any difference between the original and the counterfeit.

When the cover of the book had been concealed under lock and key he sat down in front of the grate, and began tearing up the book into single leaves, and burning each one separately in the empty grate.

As the record of the baronet's twenty years of grinding, exaction, and penurious living changed into flame and smoke and ashes, Grey's thoughts were busy with the awful aspects of his position, and now, for the first time, a new element of fear entered into the case.

He suddenly stopped in his work and looked round him with a ghastly smile. Last night he had been calculating that his only way of avoiding exposure lay through the freedom of himself to marry Maud. But suppose anything were to happen to his wife now. Suppose she died that very day; suppose she had died a week ago, a month ago; what would have occurred? He should then be a childless widower, younger in appearance and in manner than in years, and even young enough in years to be the suitor of any girl. Was it likely if he were so circumstanced Sir Alexander might not think of altering the will, of introducing into it another guardian, executor, or trustee? True, Sir Alexander was not an ordinary man, and had unlimited confidence in him, Grey; but surely he could not be such a fool as to leave his daughter and his daughter's fortune in the hands solely of a popular, good-looking, and an agreeable widower of forty-five?

The thought flurried him, and he gasped and covered his face with his handkerchief, and leaned upon the mantelpiece.

Last night it had appeared to him nothing more advantageous to his fortune could arise than the death of his wife. Now that event seemed the most disastrous which could befall him. The more he looked at the whole situation the more hopeless his position appeared. What last night he regarded as the gateway to deliverance now was the cavern of ruin. Well, he had begun burning this book, and he might as well finish it. Destroying this could have no important influence for evil on the case, and might be beneficial or have a mitigating influence.

At last the whole book lay in a mass of black and blue ashes at his feet. He stood in front of the pile for a few moments thinking. "Between that book and me there is great similarity. It was once truthful, then it recorded a lie, and now it is burnt and black. I was once honest; I fell; and now my position, my prospects, and my hopes are in ashes. There is no chance of escape."

It was after five o'clock. He rang the bell; as he did so, he heard the street-bell ring also.

"Aldridge coming back from his constitutional." Then, correcting himself, he thought: "Of course, Aldridge doesn't ring."

He unlocked the doors, and in a few minutes the servant knocked and entered.

"I want you to tidy up that grate; I've been burning some old letters," said Grey.

"Yes, sir; a letter for you, sir, just come."

"All right; leave it on my table."

"Beg pardon, sir, but it's from the Castle, and marked immediate."

The banker took it and glanced at the superscription as the servant withdrew.

"From Mrs. Grant," he muttered. "What can it be now?"

He tore open the envelope and read the contents hastily. The note was very brief. Sir Alexander had had a bad night, and was rather worse this morning. He particularly wanted to see Mr. Grey at once. Would Mr. Grey be so good as to come instantly upon receipt of this? The words in italics were underlined heavily three or four times.

"What can this be?" he thought. "The last time I got a note from Mrs. Grant asking me to go to the Castle I was in the final extremity of apprehension, and all came much better than I could have dared to hope. There seems no possibility of a favourable solution of the present situation. If the old man is sinking, that will give me only a year – and that is the least terrible thing can cause this hasty summons. Well, go I must, and at once."

He leaped lightly down the stairs, carrying his bag in his hand, and was soon driving rapidly towards Island Ferry.

Two miles lay between him and the city before he remembered his appointment with his wife on board the Rodwell.

"Never mind," he thought, "I'll board the steamboat as she passes the Island; that will make it all right."

By six o'clock he had reached Island Ferry. Without the loss of a moment he crossed over to the Island and ascended towards the Castle.

A servant at once conducted him to Mrs. Grant, who was waiting for him in the hall-room off the grand entrance-hall.

"O Mr. Grey, I am so glad you have come; we are in such fearful anxiety. Poor Sir Alexander has got worse and worse ever since I wrote to you. The doctors say this is what they have been dreading all along."

The little woman was in a state of the greatest excitement, and had completely lost all sense of proportion. The standards of her feelings had been broken by her agitation, and everything that went wrong seemed of equal importance and mischief.

"What is the matter now?" the banker asked, in a soft sympathetic voice. "I hope Miss Midharst," he added, before he gave the little widow time to answer, "is kept as free as possible from these sad and depressing scenes.

"Oh, yes; that is, I mean the poor child is fearfully distressed. She has been with her father all day. It's not good for her, but then she wouldn't come away. I think if you spoke to her it would do her good. She used to mind a good deal what I said to her, but all this day she sits there, staring as if the room was full of ghosts. I fear there's something bad the matter with the whole place; and only for darling Maud, I'm sure I shouldn't stop an hour. And to listen to him is something dreadful. He talks of nothing but his money and you and robbery – "

"What!" exclaimed Grey, loudly and sharply.

"Now," she cried, "you are offended with me just because I am nervous and excitable. Maybe you'd be excited yourself, Mr. Grey, if he was turning to you every minute and saying you were a wolf in sheep's clothing, and that you wanted to rob his child of the fortune he had laid by for her. You wouldn't like to be called a robber, and you're a man, and I am only a nervous woman; and men are more used to that kind of language than women, although, until now, I did not know that gentlemen ever used such words."

Here Mrs. Grant broke down completely, and sobbed.

By this time Grey had recovered from the appalling shock caused by Mrs. Grant's association of himself with theft. He went up to the sobbing woman, and in his gentlest accents, having placed his hand reassuringly on her shoulder, said:

"Mrs. Grant, I am exceedingly sorry if my hasty exclamation has caused you any annoyance. Believe me, nothing was further from my intention than to disturb you under the distressing circumstance you describe, and in the very shattered condition in which your nerves must be. Forgive me, pray. Do say that you forgive me."

He pleaded in his most winning voice and manner; he looked upon the friendliness of Mrs. Grant towards him as of great importance.

"It wasn't your fault, Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Grant, quieting her sobs. "I know I am not fit for anything of this kind; it always knocks me up."

"No wonder. Of course, as you say, such expressions are never heard among gentlemen – "

She interrupted him.

"I hope I didn't say anything unbecoming to you; if I did, I didn't mean it. I am so worried and confused I don't know what I'm saying." By this time she had forgotten the cause of her tears. What Grey said made her believe she herself had uttered something offensive to the banker. "I wonder can it be that I have caught the fever from Sir Alexander, and am not in my right mind?"

"No, no, no," laughed Grey reassuringly. "You need not be afraid of that." He had no desire to recall to her memory the words which had drawn from him the abrupt and disconcerting exclamation. "And so," he said, in a bland voice, "poor Sir Alexander's head is wandering."

"Oh, yes. He began to be queer last night, and got worse all the night. This morning we sent for the doctors, and they came again in the afternoon. At the latter visit they said I had better send for you, as you were so much in Sir Alexander's mind, both when he was raving and when he wasn't."

"Then he has lucid intervals?"

"Oh, yes – or, at least, not quite lucid. There are times when he is less wild than others; but I think his mind is not quite free at any time. I have been keeping you here instead of taking you direct to him, as I should have done. You will excuse me; my poor head is quite gone too. Will you come with me to him now?"

"Yes," he answered, with a profound bow.

As he followed her through the dull stately passages that, although it was still full daylight, were dim and funereal, he tried to pierce the veil of the future. How would this sudden development of the old man's disease affect him? Was the old man in his comparatively lucid moments capable of altering his will? What was the cause of the old man's desire to see him? And, above all, how had this idea of theft come upon him?

So far as he could now form an opinion of the case, he did not feel reassured.

Suppose Mrs. Grant's account of the baronet's condition of mind in the less excited moments was overdrawn, and that while in his periods of delirium he was haunted by goblin fears of robbers, in his more collected phases he might be troubled with reasonable dread of theft or misappropriation or fraud. Did the old man desire to destroy or alter his will? That was the vital question. If he did, then surely the lead would overtake the gold.

The gold! That gold could never be won back, not in as many years as it took the baronet to save it up. Not in twice as many years, and he might have no more than one year. The gold could never overtake the lead now – that is, the gold, the Consols.

But the gold of a wedding-ring for Miss Midharst would balance the five-tons weight of the baronet's. Little over half an ounce of gold would outweigh five tons; a ring that cost no more than three guineas would balance a deficit of five hundred and fifty thousand pounds!

Mrs. Grant softly opened the door of the sick chamber, and motioning someone inside to come near, she said, as Miss Midharst approached:

"Maud, dear, here is Mr. Grey; he came at once."

The girl offered him her hand, and Grey took it respectfully, tenderly, and held it, saying:

"I am deeply grieved, Miss Midharst, at what Mrs. Grant tells me. I hope this may be only a temporary affection. How is Sir Alexander now?"

"Oh, he's very, very bad!" sobbed the girl, in a whisper. "It was kind of you to come. He talks of you always."

"I am, believe me, Miss Midharst, deeply grieved for him, and – you."

Nothing could be more kind and sympathetic than his voice and manner.

"He talks of nothing but you and the money," whispered the girl, through her tears.

At that moment a shrill shout came from the bed, followed by the words:

"Ah, Grey, is that you? You thieving scoundrel! Do you dare to come into my house, under my roof, after stealing my darling's fortune! Bring me my pistols, I say – some one bring me my pistols! I will shoot this miscreant banker Grey. My pistols, I say!"

CHAPTER XI
BY THE STATE BED

For a moment Grey paused irresolutely on the threshold of the sick room. This was the most alarming ordeal to which he had been subjected. Could it be that by any untoward circumstance of disastrous fate the old man had discovered the truth?

To be loudly, violently accused of the crime he had committed by the man whose money he had stolen, and in the presence of that man's daughter!

He had often in his worst moments imagined the position he now occupied, but had never dared to think of, it had never entered his moments of wildest fear to realise, such a scene conducted in the presence of Miss Midharst and Mrs. Grant. And now to the horrors of hearing such words from the defrauded man's lips, was added the awful question, the appalling uncertainty in the questions: Did the baronet know anything? Did he know all?

His name for honour, for honesty, the existence of the respectable old institution which had been handed down to him by his father unsullied, his very life, hung upon these two questions. There was only one chance between him and ruin, between him and death. At these thoughts he made a prodigious effort, and turning to the two distracted woman with a forced smile, and a lip he could not keep from trembling, said:

"I fear my presence only excites Sir Alexander. Had I not better retire until he is more calm?"

"Oh, Mr. Grey," said Maud through her tears, "you must not mind his words. He does not know what he says. He does not understand what is said to him. He does not even know who is in the room when he is in this state. My poor father, oh, my poor father!" She covered her face with her hands and sobbed out.

Grey began to breathe more freely. He whispered, as though the weight of a mountain were rolling off him, "He does not know what he says. He does not know who is in the room. Poor gentleman! Poor Sir Alexander! I am profoundly sorry for him and for you, Miss Midharst. You can understand how much I was surprised to hear him, who has so long relied upon me, use such words to me. It was, you must admit," he looked from the woman to the girl in deferential appeal, "rather startling."

"We know what he thinks of you when he is in his right senses, Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Grant. "We know he has the greatest confidence in you."

The banker bowed deeply, and when he had straightened himself once more, regarded the widow with profound and sorrowful attention.

Mrs. Grant continued: "In his lucid moments he asked for you, and seemed anxious to see you on business, as of old; but when he raved as he did just now, he accused us all of taking his money."

"What a sad and distracting form of delusion!" murmured the banker. He could scarcely contain himself. He would at that moment have forfeited the five thousand pounds advanced on the mortgage of the Rodwell if he might throw his arms into the air and shout out and laugh and dance.

The sick man spoke of everyone as a thief in his frenzy, but in his clear moments spoke of him, Grey, as of old! He did not suspect him exclusively; the indictment to which he had listened in paralysed terror had been by accident preferred against him; by accident it might have been preferred against any other human being with whose name Sir Alexander was familiar!

The weight of earth had rolled back from his breast, and he was breathing more freely than for many a long day.

The three now left the door and walked into the room. At best the vast chamber was gloomy, but now all light but a faint dim glow that clung to the inside of the curtains was excluded.

Grey placed himself at the side of the vast bedstead. Sir Alexander had sold off all his personal furniture; he occupied one of the state rooms and slept in one of the enormous state bedsteads; these bedsteads were in the deeds he could not alter, and had to go down to the next heir. The first look the banker cast at the face of the sick man gave him a shock.

The old baronet had always had a colour in his cheeks; now all the colour was gone from the cheeks and gathered into the temples and forehead. The wrinkled forehead was of a dull brick colour. The great forked dark vein of the forehead stood up out of the dry red skin like the forked mullion of a gothic window, against whose crimson panes the west is red. In the temples of the old man the rugged veins were swollen and knotted, and in the purple hollows between the dark blue knots a quick feeble pulse fluttered and hurried forward like a frightened hunted beast. Through the counterpane the thin form showed sharply. The breathing was quick and unquiet, the eyes staring and fixed upon the carved oak ceiling. Apparently the delirious paroxysm had passed, and the patient was suffering from modified collapse.

"He will be better presently, and may recognise you," whispered Mrs. Grant into Grey's ear. She stood by his side. At the foot stood Maud, weeping softly, silently. For a while no one moved.

Gradually the breathing of the sick man grew more steady, and the fluttering pulse in the hollow temples more regular.

"In a few minutes," whispered the widow, "he will be quite collected."

As she had foretold, his eyes descended from the ceiling and began running over the room and those present, as if trying to recover memory. At length they were fixed on Grey and did not move from him. Although the eye was dull and clouded, there was a look of intelligence in it. It was the eye of a weakened intellect rather than of a disordered one.

"Ah, Grey, is that you?"

"Yes, Sir Alexander. I hope you feel better?"

"I am quite well. I have been greatly troubled about that money, those Consols. They tell me they have been sold. Is it true that my Consols have been sold? I ask you in the presence of my daughter, for whom they were saved, have they been sold?" The sick man's eyes were filmy; but while they were dull to the perception of surrounding objects, they seemed to be partly closed against objects of natural vision only that they might be partly opened to unascertainable forms and figures of supernatural view.

Grey's heart quailed. Who were "they" that had informed him of the fraud? What did the sick man know of the fraud? What did he surmise? Was there anything but imagination to account for these fears, these hideous questions, this awful ordeal? He was sorry he had left his bag below in the little room where Mrs. Grant had received him. Nothing could save him now but a calm exterior and intrepid audacity. He cleared his throat to make sure his voice was obedient to his will, and answered boldly, but softly:

"No one has sold the Consols, Sir Alexander. I answer you faithfully, in your presence and in the presence of Miss Midharst, for whose benefit they have been acquired and put by."

He was amazed himself at the firmness and clearness of his voice. If it had been merely repeating the words of another man, his voice could not have been less open to suspicion; if he had been pronouncing a most consoling truth, his manner could not have been more benignly reassuring. Instead of the words being those of another, they were so intimately his own that his existence depended upon their utterance; instead of being true, they contained a lie so monstrous under the circumstances that they were as false and wicked as a blasphemous false oath. He thought to himself grimly, as he rapidly reviewed the words and the import of his voice: "I am acting in a play of the Devil's writing, and must do honour to the character I represent and credit to the author."

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."

By this the great flush had disappeared from the old man's forehead, the veins had subsided, and a deadly pallor covered his features from forehead to chin. During the paroxysms of his delirium, it seemed as though his head was in danger of bursting from too great a supply of heated blood; now it looked as if the walls of his skull and the flesh of his face were about to crumble and fall in for want of fluid sufficient to sustain their weight. But in the eye still lingered the heat and flickered the fire of the fever. He lay still for a while, and seemed to be about to fall asleep. Presently, however, all were startled to hear his voice ring out clear and firm, high above their notion of his present strength, clear above their notion of his intellectual capacity:

"Henry Grey, take her hand, my daughter's hand, and lead her here – no the other hand – give her your left hand, Henry Grey."

Mr. Grey walked to where the girl stood, now pale and tearless, at the foot of the bed, and offered her his right hand; then his left, and led her to the side of the bed, where he had been standing.

"Now, Henry Grey, take the Testament in your right hand. I am going to make you swear – I am a deputy-lieutenant – to guard with all your power and wiles, my only daughter, Maud Midharst, herself and her fortune and her happiness. Say the words after me."

"Herself and her fortune and her happiness to guard with all my power," he repeated.

"All your power and wiles," insisted the old man, in a tone of exasperation.

"My power and – wiles," repeated Mr. Grey, after a slight hesitation.

"To act as executor of my will, trustee to her fortune, and guardian of my child. So help me, God."

Mr. Grey repeated the words with solemn deliberation.

"Kiss the Book."

Mr. Grey bent his head reverentially over the sacred volume and kissed it devoutly.

"Kiss the Book, my child. Take it in your own right hand and kiss it. It is the history of the life and sufferings and death of our Lord, and something of great moment is conducting."

"Kiss the Book, you also," looking towards Mrs. Grant.

She did as he desired.

"Now, my daughter, and you, Henry Grey, both together hold that Book, which is the history of the life and sufferings and death of our Lord, to my lips, for I am weak and unable, and I will kiss it last of all."

They placed the Book against his lips, and when he had kissed it they drew it back, and placed the Testament on the bed.

Mr. Grey folded his arms tightly across his chest; he had a feeling that his chest would burst if he did not shout out and relieve it.

"My daughter," said the sick man, "if I should never get off this bed again – and I feel that something great is conducting – when I am dead you will look to him for all advice and guidance. He will be your friend, your only friend, who can be of aid to you when I am dead. You will lean upon him. He will guard your money and see that no one does you ill or cheats you. He is an honest man, Maud. He has taken care of your fortune for me until now; he will take care of it for you when I am dead. You will have no one else but him; no friend in all the world but Henry Grey."

"Oh, my God!" burst from the banker. If the hangman were in the room, and any word spoken by him, Grey, was to be the signal for his death, he could not restrain himself.

For a moment they all three looked at him in grave surprise. His words were not perhaps improper to the grave occasion, but his manner of uttering them had something startling in it. There was in his tone a cry of wild appeal against an inexorable decree of prodigious woe. His voice had more the sound of a brute's inarticulate cry of despair than any human agony fitted to human words. It was a death-cry, the death-cry of some fine instinct of the human soul. It was a cry the like of which no man utters twice in a lifetime.

The old man regarded the banker for a moment with a look of surprise. Then the expression of the old man's face softened, and he said: "Grey, my arm is weak. I cannot raise it. Take my hand. You will be good to her when I am dead. I know what the world may say. It may say, Grey, that you and I are not equals; that I might have bestowed the guardianship of my daughter's fortune among houses such as the Fleureys' or the Midharsts'. But I know what you are and what your father was, and I am placing what I value above all earthly things in your keeping. I am an old man, and the doctors may be right this time. I am old and weak, Henry Grey, and I want you to be her friend when I am dead. The world may say what it pleases about you as guardian. I am firm in my faith in you. No orphan, friendless – the last, I may say, of her house – had ever a more careful or prudent or wise guardian than you. I am old and weak. There is one more favour I would ask of you before you go – for I have said all. You will not refuse an old man on his death-bed, Henry Grey?"