“He took his breakfast as usual, and he went out afterwards as usual, walking as upright as a post, and looking as strong and as hard as ever. After a bit he stopped and shook all over. Then he turned round and went indoors. He went into the library, and he sat down before the fire.” “Did he speak?” “Never a word. I offered him a glass of wine, but he only shook his head. At one o’clock I took him his dinner, but he could eat nothing. Presently he drank a glass of wine. At four o’clock I took him his tea, but he wouldn’t touch it. Only he drank another glass of wine. That’s all he’s had since the morning. And now he is sitting doubled up, with his face working terrible.” They opened the door of the library softly and went in. He was not sitting ‘doubled up’: he was lying back in his ragged old leather chair, extended--his long legs stretched out, his hands on the arms of the chair, his broad shoulders and his great head lying back--splendid even in decay, like autumn opulent. His eyes were open, staring straight upwards to the ceiling. His face was, as the housekeeper put it ‘working.’ It spoke of some internal struggle. What was it that he was fighting in his weary brain? “Leonard,” the girl whispered, “it is not despair in his face. It is not defiance. Look! It is doubt. There is something he cannot understand. He hears whispers. Oh, I think I hear them, too! I know what they are and whose they are.” She drew down her veil to hide her tears. The sun had now gone down. The shadows of the twilight lay about the corners of the big room, the rows of books looked ghostly; the western light began to fall, and the colours began to fade. A fire burned in the grate, as it always burned all the year round; the flames began to throw flickering lights and shadows about the room; they lit up the face of the old man, and his figure seemed to stand out clear and apart, as if there were nothing in the room but himself; nay, as if there were no room, no furniture, no house, nothing but that one sole figure in the presence--the unspeakable presence--of the Judge. His face was changing; the housekeeper spoke the truth. The defiance and the stubbornness were going out of it. What was come to take their place? As yet, nothing but doubt and pain and trouble. As for the whispers, there was no proof that there were any whispers, save from the assurance of the girl who heard them with the ear of faith. Leonard stepped forward and bent over him. “Sir,” he said solemnly, “you know me. I am your great-grandson--the grandson of your eldest son, who killed himself because he discovered a secret--your secret. And he could no longer endure it and live. I am his grandson.” The words were plain, even brutal. Leonard intended that there should be no mistake about them. But, plain as they were, they produced no effect. There was not even a gleam in the old man’s eye to show that he heard.