Remembering all the past, which at times had puzzled him, and which he now understood, he was certain that she had known from the first, and so was an accomplice. Possibly the law would not touch her, he reasoned, as he tried to fancy what might have been had this thing been known to the public; but he remembered having heard of a case which happened in an adjoining town many years before, where, at the instigation of his wife, a man was killed and thrown into his own well. The wife was hung in Worcester with her three accomplices, but a woman who was in the house at the time went free, though she was ever after known as "Old 'Scape Gallows," and shunned accordingly. Was his Aunt Hannah like her? Would people thus call her, if they knew?
"No, no; oh, no," he cried in agony. "She is not like that! Please God, grant that my Aunt Hannah is a good woman still. I cannot lose faith in her, and I love her so much."
And thus the dreadful night wore to an end, and the morning found Grey burning with fever, while a sharp pain, like a knife, cut through his temples every time he moved. He was not surprised when Lucy came and told him his grandfather was dead. He expected it, but with a moan he buried his face in his pillow, and sobbed:
"Oh, grandpa, where are you now, I wonder; and I thought you so good, so sure of Heaven. Please, God, have mercy on him. Oh, I can not bear it. I cannot bear to think that he is lost! And he loved me so, and blessed me on his death-bed."
This was the burden of Grey's grief, for he did not stop to consider all the years of sincere repentance which had purified the soul just gone, and made it fit for heaven, and his heart was very sore as he slowly dressed himself and went down to the breakfast-room to meet his father, who knew what he did, and who must feel it just as keenly.
Grey's first impulse was to fall upon his neck and cry out:
"I know it. I heard it. I was there. We will bear it together," but when he remembered that his grandfather had said: "that he was not to know," he restrained himself, and said very quietly:
"Grandpa is dead. Aunt Lucy told me. When is the funeral?"
The voice was not like Grey's, and Mr. Jerrold looked up quickly to meet the eyes which fell at once as did his own. Neither could look in the other's face with that secret which each knew and was hiding from the other. But both were outwardly calm, and the breakfast passed quietly, with no reference to the recent event occupying the minds of all. Mrs. Jerrold and her sister had expected that Grey would feel his loss keenly and possibly be noisy in his boyish demonstrations of grief, but they were not prepared for the torpor which seemed to have settled upon him, and which kept him indoors all day sitting by the fire over which he shivered as if in a chill, though his cheeks were crimson, and he sometimes wiped the drops of sweat from his lips and forehead. His head was still aching terribly, and he was cold and faint, and this was a sufficient reason for his declining to accompany his Aunt Lucy, when, after breakfast was over, she went with his father to the farm-house, where she spent nearly the entire day, seeing to the many little things necessary for the funeral, and which Hannah could not attend to.