This knowledge made him realize how unwise at such a season was Gregory's debauch, and sorrowfully did he wag his head over his master's condition of stupor.
Stephen had grave fears concerning him, and these fears were realized when upon the morrow Gregory awoke on fire with the fever.

They summoned a leech from Sheringham, and this cunning knave, with a view to adding importance to the cure he was come to effect, and which in reality presented no alarming difficulty, shook his head with ominous gravity, and whilst promising to do "all that his skill permitted," he spoke of a clergyman to help Gregory make his peace with God.

For the leech had no cause to suspect that the whole of the Sacred College might have found the task beyond its powers.
A wild fear took Gregory in its grip.

How could he die with such a load as that which he now carried upon his soul?
And the leech, seeing how the matter preyed upon his patient's mind, made shift--but too late--to tranquillize him with assurances that he was not really like to die, and that he had but mentioned a parson so that Gregory in any case should be prepared.
The storm once raised, however, was not so easily to be allayed, and the conviction remained with Gregory that his sands were well-nigh run, and that the end could be but a matter of days in coming.
Realizing as he did how richly he had earned damnation, a frantic terror was upon him, and all that day he tossed and turned, now blaspheming, now praying, now weeping.

His life had been indeed one protracted course of wrong-doing, and many had suffered by Gregory's evil ways--many a man and many a woman.