Mechanically his eyes turned to the side wall; an old secretary stood there, its glass doors curtained within by faded red rep. He had kept his fishing-tackle in its old cupboard; the book of flies was in a green box on the second shelf, at the left. Samuel looked at those curtained doors, and at the shabby case of drawers below them where the veneer had peeled and blistered under the hot sun of long afternoons, and the sudden surge of youth into his dry, middle-aged mind, was suffocating. Something not himself impelled him on up the half-flight from the landing, each step creaking under his heavy tread; drew him across the hall, laid his hand on the door of the secretary.... Yes; there they were: the green pasteboard box, the flannel book to hold the flies. He put out his hand stealthily and lifted the book;--rust and moth-eaten rags. The shock of that crumbling touch and the smell of dust made him gasp--and instantly he was back again in middle age. He shut the secretary quietly, and looked around him. On the right side of the hall was a closed door. _His_ door. The door out of which he had rushed that windy March night thirty-two years ago. How hot with passion he had been then! How cold he was now. On the other side of the hall a door was ajar; behind it was his father. He looked at it with sombre indifferent eyes; then pushed it open and entered. He saw a little figure, sunk in the heap of pillows on the big bed; a little shrunken figure, without a wig, frightened-eyed, and mumbling. Samuel Wright came forward with the confidence of apathy. As he stood at the foot of the bed, dully looking down, the thick tongue broke into a whimpering stammer: "M-m-my f--" And at that, something seemed to melt in the poor locked heart of the son. _"Father!"_ said Samuel Wright passionately. He stooped and took the helpless fingers, and held them hard in his own trembling hand. For a moment he could not speak. Then he said some vague thing about getting stronger. He did not know what he said; he was sorry, as one is sorry for a suffering child. The figure in the bed looked at him with scared eyes. One of the pillows slipped a little, and Samuel pulled it up, clumsily to be sure, but with the decided touch of pity and purpose, the touch of the superior. That fixing the pillow behind the shaking helpless head, swept away the last traces of the quarrel. He sat down by the gloomy catafalque of a bed, and when Benjamin Wright began to say again, "M-m-my f--" he stopped him with a gesture. "No, father; not at all. He would have gone away anyhow, whether you had given him the money or not. No; it was my fault," the poor man said, dropping back into his own misery. "I was hard on him. Even that last night, I spoke harshly to him. Sometimes I think that possibly I didn't entirely understand him." He dropped his head in his hand, and stared blankly at the floor. He did not see the dim flash of humor in the old eyes. CHAPTER XXVI