There was a very long pause. It seemed as if Michael, steady though his voice had remained, were unable to finish the utterance of the thoughts that were in his mind. The others were silent, and Gilbert looked doggedly downwards. ‘That house, as I say, is now all I have, but it is my own, and you have just given in the account of your stewardship,’ went on Michael, his lips white and his eyes hard, so that Roger felt a kind of fear of him. ‘There it is!’ He laid his hand upon the will. ‘To me, it has been a fatal stewardship. It has robbed me not only of my inheritance, but of my brother.’ And he advanced two or three steps nearer to Gilbert. The latter rose; perhaps he knew what was to come. Neither of the others dared to speak. Gilbert once lifted his head and looked at his brother, but instantly his face sank again. He was voiceless, powerless, defenceless. Michael stepped aside and threw the door open wide. ‘Being my house,’ he said, ‘I order you to leave it now, this instant. Go!’ Another pause. Silence still. Michael stood waiting. Gilbert looked around him, as if he struggled to speak, but could not. He saw nothing to cheer him. Dr. Rowntree with his hands clasped, his kind face looking the picture of woe; Roger Camm frowning and silent. Gilbert took two steps towards the door. ‘Michael,’ he said. ‘Go!’ repeated Michael, in a stony voice. Gilbert walked slowly out at the door, into the hall, took his hat, and left the house. They heard the hall door close after him, and it was with two of them, at least, as if the sound struck them like an actual blow. To turn one’s brother out of doors would generally be done figuratively—morally, perhaps. Michael had done it literally, and with a resistless determination and strength of will which none of them had credited him with. His hour had come at last, and the real stuff of which he was made, good or bad, was beginning to show itself. After a moment’s silence, he turned again to the others and said— ‘I won’t detain you any longer. I wish I could have spared you such a scene, but as my two nearest friends, I wished you to be under no mistake as to what I was going to do. And now I should like to be alone for awhile.’ Roger heaved a deep sigh, and said nothing, but moved towards the door. The doctor, who had a tender heart, and down whose cheeks the tears were running, fell back into old Quaker phraseology, as he almost sobbed out— ‘Michael, my poor, poor lad, thou’ll come and sleep in thy own bed to-night, at my house, won’t thou?’ ‘Yes, I will, doctor,’ replied Michael slowly; and they left him alone. CHAPTER IX THE GODDESS OF THE TENDER FEET ‘The goddess Calamity is delicate, and ... her feet are tender. Her feet are soft, he says, for she treads not upon the ground, but makes her path upon the heads of men.’