[5] It was the last time I saw it; in fact, I doubt, on thinking it over, if any of us were ever inside the old Gwynne house again.--M. S. W. CHAPTER NINETEEN Doctor Vardaman viewed the departure of his guests with mingled relief and chagrin; the evening had not ended quite according to his expectations, and he could not decide whether the disaster was his fault or theirs; perhaps on the whole, they were lucky the outcome was no worse. The young men of this generation lacked the self-control or the physical fibre of their sires, he told himself irritably; and then a queer smile twitched his lips as he remembered his own father saying the same thing. To every age its own faults, and also its own standards of judging them. In his day people used to speak tolerantly enough of a man who drank; it was held a contemptible, but hardly a disgraceful weakness. Are we grown better, or only more prudent? We go to church less, but we certainly bathe a deal oftener. The creed of keeping one's health is no such poor creed, when all is said; a man will diet to save his mortal body with twice the vigour and conviction than he will pray to save his immortal soul--and who shall say that it is not right, or at least expedient for him to do so? For after all the health of his soul is his own affair, but the health of his body vitally concerns the welfare of others. Thus the doctor, moralising a little far afield from the events of the evening; and he shrewdly suspected that to the rest of the young fellows, Ted's drunkenness was not so unforgivable an offence in itself, except for the monstrous inconvenience of it. "And I am afraid I _am_ responsible for that," he said with half a sigh. "If I had married and brought up a family, I should have known better how to manage the lads. Eh, Louise?" He uttered the last words aloud with a pensive glance at his Labrador-stones, and started at the eerie sound of his own voice raised in sentimental monologue beside his empty hearth. "I'm getting maudlin myself, now!" he thought, and went to close the hall door swaying and creaking dismally in a rush of damp, chilly air. It was raining pitilessly; it had rained for nearly two weeks. The doctor, standing in his doorway, beheld the arrowy slant of water shining against the dark where the hall light irradiated it; amongst the irregularities of his brick-paved walk small puddles showed an unsteady glistening surface. The bushes in half-leaf on either side drooped and shone. Farther away there was an incessant rumour of wheels, and he was aware of the measured approach and passage of carriage-lamps in pairs, directed toward the Pallinder gate. Doctor Vardaman watched them absently for some time, while the swift wind refreshed his house; then he remembered Teddy, whom he had refused to leave alone, slammed the door and went upstairs.