"And he was not half a bad sort, the governor," said Carless, shutting up the day-book.
"I say let's all go to the funeral," suggested a third; and so these young men wrote their employer's epitaph.
Meantime Mr. Forde was proceeding westward as fast as the legs of a swift horse could take him. To describe what he felt would be as impossible as to detail the contents and occupants of each vehicle the hansom passed--the hopes and fears--the miseries and joys hidden behind the walls of the countless houses, which lay to left and right of his route.
He believed; he did not believe. He dreaded; no it was all a sham. Now in imagination he started himself with the detectives in pursuit, again with dry parched lips he was answering the questions of his directors.
If he had realized the fact, he suffered in the course of that rapid drive enough misery to have driven many a man insane. Misery of his own causing if you will, but misery all the harder to endure on that account.
Happily for himself, however, Mr. Forde was a person who did not realize. He was a man who before he had grasped the worst decided there must be some means of escape from it, and accordingly, the first words he uttered to Williams were--
"Have not you heard, sir," answered that well-trained functionary, startled for once out of his propriety of demeanour by Mr. Forde's tremendous knock, by Mr. Forde's loud utterance, "my master died last night!"
"Passed away, sir, if you prefer that expression," acquiesced the man. "He had been out all day, and when he returned in the evening he said it was of no use serving dinner, for he was suffering such agonies from neuralgia that he could not eat anything. He had called at the doctor's on his way, but he was not at home.
"He asked me to bring him a cup of strong coffee, which I did.
"About eight o'clock I went in to the study to light the gas, and when I opened the door there was a strong smell of some apothecary's stuff," (here the man became visibly affected), "and something in that and the way my master was lying on the sofa attracted my attention. I spoke to him, but he did not answer me. I lifted his arm which was hanging over on the carpet, but it fell again when I let it go.