Mr. Grewgious heard a terrible shriek, and saw no ghastly figure, sitting or standing; saw nothing but a heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor.

Not changing his action even then, he opened and shut the palms of his hands as he warmed them, and looked down at it.

CHAPTER XVI—­DEVOTED

When John Jasper recovered from his fit or swoon, he found himself being tended by Mr. and Mrs. Tope, whom his visitor had summoned for the purpose.  His visitor, wooden of aspect, sat stiffly in a chair, with his hands upon his knees, watching his recovery.

‘There!  You’ve come to nicely now, sir,’ said the tearful Mrs. Tope; ‘you were thoroughly worn out, and no wonder!’

‘A man,’ said Mr. Grewgious, with his usual air of repeating a lesson, ’cannot have his rest broken, and his mind cruelly tormented, and his body overtaxed by fatigue, without being thoroughly worn out.’

‘I fear I have alarmed you?’ Jasper apologised faintly, when he was helped into his easy-chair.

‘Not at all, I thank you,’ answered Mr. Grewgious.

‘You are too considerate.’

‘Not at all, I thank you,’ answered Mr. Grewgious again.

‘You must take some wine, sir,’ said Mrs. Tope, ’and the jelly that I had ready for you, and that you wouldn’t put your lips to at noon, though I warned you what would come of it, you know, and you not breakfasted; and you must have a wing of the roast fowl that has been put back twenty times if it’s been put back once.  It shall all be on table in five minutes, and this good gentleman belike will stop and see you take it.’

This good gentleman replied with a snort, which might mean yes, or no, or anything or nothing, and which Mrs. Tope would have found highly mystifying, but that her attention was divided by the service of the table.

‘You will take something with me?’ said Jasper, as the cloth was laid.

‘I couldn’t get a morsel down my throat, I thank you,’ answered Mr. Grewgious.

Jasper both ate and drank almost voraciously.  Combined with the hurry in his mode of doing it, was an evident indifference to the taste of what he took, suggesting that he ate and drank to fortify himself against any other failure of the spirits, far more than to gratify his palate.  Mr. Grewgious in the meantime sat upright, with no expression in his face, and a hard kind of imperturbably polite protest all over him:  as though he would have said, in reply to some invitation to discourse; ’I couldn’t originate the faintest approach to an observation on any subject whatever, I thank you.’

‘Do you know,’ said Jasper, when he had pushed away his plate and glass, and had sat meditating for a few minutes:  ’do you know that I find some crumbs of comfort in the communication with which you have so much amazed me?’

‘Do you?’ returned Mr. Grewgious, pretty plainly adding the unspoken clause:  ‘I don’t, I thank you!’