Geoff obeyed, being indeed very much exhausted and shaken by all that had happened. He swallowed the sweet, strong decoction of unknown elements, which Bampfylde called port wine, and believed in as a panacea, and tried to eat a morsel of the oat-cake. They heard the distant moans gradually die out, as the blueness of dawn stole in at the window. Bampfylde, whose tongue seemed to be loosed by this climax of excitement, began to talk; he told Geoff of the long watch of years which they had kept, how his mother and he relieved each other, and how they had hoped the patient was growing calmer, how he had mended and calmed down, sometimes for long intervals, but then grown worse again; and the means they had used to restrain him, and all the details of his state. When the ice was thus broken, it seemed a relief to talk of it. “He was to make all our fortunes,” Bampfylde said; “he was a gentleman--and he was a great scholar. All her pride was in him; and this is what it’s come to now.” They had fallen into silence when ’Lizabeth came in. Their excitement had decreased, thanks to the conversation and the natural relief which comes after a crisis, but hers was still at its full height. She came in solemnly, and sat down amongst them, the blue light from the window making a paleness about her as she placed herself in front of it; though the lamp was still burning on the mantelshelf, and the fire kept up a ruddy variety of light. She seated herself in the big wooden arm-chair with a solemn countenance and fixed her eyes upon Geoff, who, moved beyond measure by pity and reverence, did not know what to think. “He will have told you,” she said. “I would have died sooner, my young lord; and soon I’ll die--but, my boy first, I pray God. Ay, you’ve seen him now. That was him that was my pride; that was the hope I had in my life; that was him that killed young Lord Stanton and made John Musgrave an exile and a wanderer. Ay--you know it all now.” CHAPTER XXI. AN EARLY MEETING