"Of course."
What could be coming? This was a very grave prelude.
"You are executor and trustee to the will?"
"Yes." Grey started. "Sole executor and trustee."
"Sole executor and trustee! Are you sure of that? Evans said you were one of the executors and trustees."
"I am sole executor and trustee, I assure you."
What had he said to Evans about the will? In his conscious moments he had no intention of saying anything to Evans about the will. The blows were coming too heavily and too quickly. His head – his head!
"Strange! Evans ought to be more careful. He said he was not sure whether the others were living or not; but he mentioned the fact that it would be necessary to inquire and ascertain if they were living or dead."
The attorney looked cautiously into the sarcophagus, as though he expected the bottom to disappear, disclosing the missing executors and trustees.
Grey glanced at the other man in a bewildered way. The whole of his intellect must be going. Not only had he gone to Evans and given him important instructions about something or other, but, if he was to credit Evans and Barraclough, he had forgotten a feature in that will, and this very feature happened to be enough to destroy him instantly. Could it be, good Heavens, that there was a second name in the will, and he had forgotten it, and was roaming here about London instead of taking the precaution of blowing out his brains!
He felt sick and faint. His head began to swim. What a blessed fate that of those men of Egypt who, three thousand years ago, had died, and been swathed up in bandages, enclosed in huge granite coffins, and buried in the inviolable silence and security of pyramids! Here was he, all naked and raw from crime, out in the rough winds, among the rough ways of unfeeling men; and add to all this his head – his head!
"I am surprised at Evans," said Grey. "He ought to have known. He ought to have known better."
"I should think he ought!" exclaimed the attorney warmly. "To fancy a man instructing another to move in an important matter of this kind, to write and say the consent of the trustees might be relied upon, and then to find out there was but one trustee! Evans must be going mad."
"Yes; he or – I."
"Nonsense," returned Barraclough. "There is no chance of your being wrong. Evans is either careless or mad."
"What do you purpose doing?" asked Grey cautiously.
That question might safely be put in the face of any facts.
"I shall sell, of course. Evans tells me you agree to sell; so that if you are sole executor and trustee, there is no need to look up anyone for consent."
What was he to hear next? This man was telling him he had a co-executor and co-trustee, and that he had authorised Evans to sell. Monstrous! Which was his period of insanity: when he had (if he had) given Evans the instructions, or now? Which was his madness: in giving such instructions, or in now believing his senses and the words of this man? He made a great effort, pulled all his faculties together, knit his brows, and put this question to himself: "Is the lead to overtake the gold – to-night?" Then he put another question to Barraclough:
"What did Evans say altogether?"
"That Mrs. Grey had come to him – " Arrested by the banker's manner, Barraclough paused.
Grey had leaned suddenly forward, thrust a pale, shrivelled face close to Barraclough's, placed one hand on the attorney's shoulder, and, pointing over his own right shoulder with the other hand, whispered:
"This one?"
"You are ill?"
"No. Go on."
"You really look very ill. Let me – "
"No. Go on."
"He said she wished to sell out her annuity of two thousand a year – "
"Who said that?"
"Mrs. Grey, your mother."
"My mother?"
"Yes."
Suddenly Grey's face changed. It flushed. He drew himself clear of the attorney, and, throwing his arms aloft, uttered a loud long laugh, followed by the words: "Before high Heaven I thought he meant my wife!"
All eyes were now directed to where the tall banker stood, with his arms upraised, and a smile of joy upon his flushed face. Ere the last echo of his voice had died away among these galleries of relics from the wrecks of a hundred religions, Grey's knees shook, and, with a groan, he fell to the ground.
It was hours before Walter Grey regained consciousness. His thoughts were sluggish and dull. The edges of his ideas were blurred, and wavering this way and that against the background. Around him all was dim. It was night. A shaded lamp was somewhere in the room. He did not know where the lamp stood.
Where was that lamp? What a strange thing no one came there to tell him where the lamp lay! He himself could not of course get up to try and find out where the lamp was. Of course not.
Why not? Ay, why not? Wasn't it very strange there should be no one there to tell him where the lamp was, particularly as he could not get up!
But why – why – why?
He lost the sense of sight, and felt his eyes pressed against illimitable void darkness. His ears, too, were dead, plugged with thick silence that was not clear, but confused silence, as in the ears of one deep in water. Then the darkness and the silence shuddered with horror, and he ceased to be aware.
It was daylight, and his tongue was very thick – thicker than ever he had felt it. It was so thick and stiff he could not move it. This was strange. The light, too, was peculiar. It looked as though the dawn or daylight lay far from the window. Of course the dawn was far away from the windows always, but it seemed immeasurably far off this morning. But then the ringing of all those bells made up for the increased distance of the dawn. How dull he had been not to see that at first! Of course the bells more than compensated the distance of the dawn. How he hated Latin! He'd never even try to learn it – never. They might flog him as much as ever they chose, but Latin he'd never learn. Not for all the masters in England. No; not for his father. He would not even pretend to learn it, only for his mother. But for his mother he'd shy a slate at the head-master, and hit the Latin man with the heavy, very heavy knob of the big school-room poker on the bald part, right in the middle of the bald part, of his head. They were ringing a thousand bells more now. How the sound did thin out the dawn! It thinned it out until all was worn away. Well, he had better go to sleep. He had a hard day's work before him. He had promised Bee (this very day six weeks they had been married) to take her on the river, their own river, and show her what he could do with the sculls. He was to pull her down to Seacliff. And yet, with that run on the Bank, how was he to sleep? Bee too was worrying him a good deal. Why did they not stop those bells? They had changed the measure of the bells. They had been ringing peals of joy; they now rang ten thousand times more bells, but they were all ringing death-bells. Ah, yes; how stupid he had been! Of course, they were burying the universe in the Great Darkness, and these were the great bells swung in the peaked hollows of space, ringing for the burial in chaos of the dead stars. Now he must go.
It was afternoon before he again opened his eyes. He felt something had happened, what he did not know. "I have had a bad fall, or an accident of another kind; my head feels queer and I am weak. What has happened? Where am I?"
He lay still awhile to recover strength. Then he asked feebly: "Is there anyone here?"
A nurse showed herself. She would not allow him to speak much, but she told him the history of his present position briefly:
While speaking to Mr. Barraclough in the British Museum, he had had an attack, of what kind the doctor did not say. From the British Museum Mr. Barraclough had him conveyed to this place, the attorney's house, where he had been insensible for some hours.
Had he raved?
No;