"What can this be?" he thought. "The last time I got a note from Mrs. Grant asking me to go to the Castle I was in the final extremity of apprehension, and all came much better than I could have dared to hope. There seems no possibility of a favourable solution of the present situation. If the old man is sinking, that will give me only a year--and that is the least terrible thing can cause this hasty summons. Well, go I must, and at once." He leaped lightly down the stairs, carrying his bag in his hand, and was soon driving rapidly towards Island Ferry. Two miles lay between him and the city before he remembered his appointment with his wife on board the _Rodwell_. "Never mind," he thought, "I'll board the steamboat as she passes the Island; that will make it all right." By six o'clock he had reached Island Ferry. Without the loss of a moment he crossed over to the Island and ascended towards the Castle. A servant at once conducted him to Mrs. Grant, who was waiting for him in the hall-room off the grand entrance-hall. "O Mr. Grey, I am so glad you have come; we are in such fearful anxiety. Poor Sir Alexander has got worse and worse ever since I wrote to you. The doctors say this is what they have been dreading all along." The little woman was in a state of the greatest excitement, and had completely lost all sense of proportion. The standards of her feelings had been broken by her agitation, and everything that went wrong seemed of equal importance and mischief. "What is the matter now?" the banker asked, in a soft sympathetic voice. "I hope Miss Midharst," he added, before he gave the little widow time to answer, "is kept as free as possible from these sad and depressing scenes. "Oh, yes; that is, I mean the poor child is fearfully distressed. She has been with her father all day. It's not good for her, but then she wouldn't come away. I think if you spoke to her it would do her good. She used to mind a good deal what I said to her, but all this day she sits there, staring as if the room was full of ghosts. I fear there's something bad the matter with the whole place; and only for darling Maud, I'm sure I shouldn't stop an hour. And to listen to him is something dreadful. He talks of nothing but his money and you and robbery----" "What!" exclaimed Grey, loudly and sharply. "Now," she cried, "you are offended with me just because I am nervous and excitable. Maybe _you'd_ be excited yourself, Mr. Grey, if he was turning to you every minute and saying you were a wolf in sheep's clothing, and that you wanted to rob his child of the fortune he had laid by for her. You wouldn't like to be called a robber, and you're a man, and I am only a nervous woman; and men are more used to that kind of language than women, although, until now, I did not know that gentlemen ever used such words." Here Mrs. Grant broke down completely, and sobbed.