'
I stammered I know not what. I was incoherent--wild, perhaps; but somehow
I expressed my meaning--my unalterable decision. I thought his lips grew
whiter and his eyes shone brighter as I spoke.
When I had quite made an end, he heaved a great sigh, and turning his eyes
slowly to the right and the left, like a man in a helpless distraction, he
whispered--
'God's will be done.'
I thought he was upon the point of fainting--a clay tint darkened the white
of his face; and, seeming to forget my presence, he sat down, looking with
a despairing scowl on his ashy old hand, as it lay upon the table.
I stood gazing at him, feeling almost as if I had murdered the old man--he
still gazing askance, with an imbecile scowl, upon his hand.
'Shall I go, sir?' I at length found courage to whisper.
'_Go?_' he said, looking up suddenly; and it seemed to me as if a stream of
cold sheet-lightning had crossed and enveloped me for a moment.
'Go?--oh!--a--yes--_yes_, Maud--go. I must see poor Dudley before his
departure,' he added, as it were, in soliloquy.
Trembling lest he should revoke his permission to depart, I glided quickly
and noiselessly from the room.
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