there; its stamp in the swollen, worn-out hollows; its imprint in the
fine lines at the corners of his mouth; its sign manual in the faintest
relaxation of the under lip, which had not yet become a looseness.

For the last of the Siwards had at last stepped into the highway which
his doomed forebears had travelled before him.

"Gumble!" he called irritably.

A quavering voice, an unsteady step, and the old man entered again. "Mr.
Stephen, sir?"

"Bring that decanter back. Didn't you hear me tell you just now?"

"Sir?"

"Didn't you hear me?"

"Yes, Mr. Stephen, sir."

There was a silence.

"Gumble!"

"Sir?"

"Are you going to bring that decanter?"

The old butler bowed, and ambled from the room, and for a long while
Siward sat sullenly listening and scoring the edges of the paper with
his trembling pencil. Then the lead broke short, and he flung it from
him and pulled the bell. Wands came this time, a lank, sandy, silent
man, grown gray as a rat in the service of the Siwards. He received his
master's orders, and withdrew; and again Siward waited, biting his under
lip and tearing bits from the edges of the newspaper with fingers never
still; but nobody came with the decanter, and after a while his tense
muscles relaxed; something in his very soul seemed to snap, and he sank
back in his chair, the hot tears blinding him.

He had got as far as that; moments of self-pity were becoming almost as
frequent as scorching intervals of self-contempt.

So they all knew what was the matter with him--they all knew--the
doctor, the servants, his friends. Had he not surprised the quick
suspicion in Fleetwood's glance, when he told him he had slipped, and
sprained his ankle? What if he had been drunk when he fell--fell on his
own doorsteps, carried into the old Siward house by old Siward servants,
drunk as his forefathers? It was none of Fleetwood's business. It was
none of the servants' business. It was nobody's business except his own.
Who the devil were all these people, to pry into his affairs and doctor
him and dose him and form secret leagues to disobey him, and hide
decanters from him? Why should anybody have the impertinence to meddle
with him? Of what concern to them were his vices or his virtues?

The tears dried in his hot eyes; he jerked the old-fashioned bell
savagely; and after a long while he heard servants whispering together
in the passageway outside his door.

He lay very still in his chair; his h