Mr. Jerrold had never been the same since that night when he heard his father’s confession, and he was fast growing into a morbid, misanthropic man, whom his wife, not without reason, feared would one day be crazy.

Every year he shrank more and more from meeting his fellowmen, and at last he abandoned business altogether, and remained mostly at home in a room which he called his office, and where he saw only those he was obliged to see.  The money lying in his bank in Hannah’s name, but which he knew was intended for some one else, and the shares in the mines and quarries of Wales, troubled him greatly, for somewhere in the world there were people to whom they belonged, and he sometimes felt that if he and his sister were guiltless of their father’s crime, they were, at least, thieves and robbers, because of the silence upon which he himself had insisted.  More than once recently he had resolved to tell Grey, and let him decide the matter, and it was upon this very thing he was brooding, on the morning when his son was announced.  Grey had reached Allington the previous day, and found his mother there waiting to receive him.

“I wanted your father to come with me, but he would not.  He dislikes Allington worse than I do, and mopes all day in his room just as his father did.  I wonder if there is any insanity in the family,” she said to Grey, who answered, cheerily: 

“Not a bit of it, mother; and if there is Bessie’s advent among us will exorcise the demon.  I am going to Boston to-morrow to see father, and shall bring him back with me a different man entirely.”

He found his father in his room, moping, as his mother had said, and was struck with the change in him, even during the few months he had been away.  He stooped more than ever, and there was in his whole appearance an air of weakness and brokenness of spirit pitiable to see in a man who had once been so proud and strong.

“Grey, my boy, how are you?  I am glad to see you, very glad,” he said, as his son entered the room; and when Grey sat down by him, and taking his thin, white hand, pressed it gently and said, “Poor father, you are not well, are you?” he did a most astonishing thing.  He laid his head on his son’s arm and sobbed aloud: 

“No, Grey, I am sick—­in mind, not in body—­and I have been sick these—­how old are you, Grey?”

“Twenty-six, my next birthday,” Grey replied, and he continued: 

“Yes, you were fourteen when your grandfather died.  Twelve years ago, and for twelve years I have been sick—­very sick.  Oh, Grey, if I dared to tell you, and ask you what to do!”

“You need not tell me,” Grey said to him.  “I know what you mean, and have known it ever since grandpa died, for I was there that night, unknown to you or any one; was in the kitchen by the stove, and heard what grandpa told you.  Don’t you remember how sick I was after it?  Well, that was what ailed me.  Aunt Hannah knows.  I told her, and together we have tried to find his heirs, and, father, we have found them, or her, for there is but one direct heir of his sister Elizabeth, and that—­and that—­is Bessie, my wife.  Oh, father, look up, bear up; you must not faint,” Grey continued in alarm, as he felt his father press heavily against him, and saw the ghastly pallor on his face.