Who's that?"
"It's I, sir," cried Milly. "Pray, sir, let me in!"
"No! not for the world!" he said.
"Mr. Redlaw, Mr. Redlaw, pray, sir, let me in."
"What is the matter?" he said, holding the boy.
"The miserable man you saw, is worse, and nothing I can say will
wake him from his terrible infatuation. William's father has
turned childish in a moment, William himself is changed. The shock
has been too sudden for him; I cannot understand him; he is not
like himself. Oh, Mr. Redlaw, pray advise me, help me!"
"No! No! No!" he answered.
"Mr. Redlaw! Dear sir! George has been muttering, in his doze,
about the man you saw there, who, he fears, will kill himself."
"Better he should do it, than come near me!"
"He says, in his wandering, that you know him; that he was your
friend once, long ago; that he is the ruined father of a student
here - my mind misgives me, of the young gentleman who has been
ill. What is to be done? How is he to be followed? How is he to
be saved? Mr. Redlaw, pray, oh, pray, advise me! Help me!"
All this time he held the boy, who was half-mad to pass him, and
let her in.
"Phantoms! Punishers of impious thoughts!" cried Redlaw, gazing
round in anguish, "look upon me! From the darkness of my mind, let
the glimmering of contrition that I know is there, shine up and
show my misery! In the material world as I have long taught,
nothing can be spared; no step or atom in the wondrous structure
could be lost, without a blank being made in the great universe.
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