.......................... The man of silence was silent indeed now. In the room where paralysis had fallen on him a bed was brought, and he lay nerveless on the verge of a still deeper silence. The hours went by. His eyes opened, he saw and recognised them all, but his look rested only on Faith and Soolsby; and, as time went on, these were the only faces to which he gave an answering look of understanding. Days wore away, but he neither spoke nor moved. People came and went softly, and he gave no heed. There was ever a trouble in his eyes when they were open. Only when Soolsby came did it seem to lessen. Faith saw this, and urged Soolsby to sit by him. She had questioned much concerning what had happened before the stroke fell, but Soolsby said only that the old man had been greatly troubled about David. Once Lady Eglington, frail and gentle and sympathetic, came, but the trouble deepened in his eyes, and the lids closed over them, so that he might not see her face. When she had gone, Soolsby, who had been present and had interpreted the old man’s look according to a knowledge all his own, came over to the bed, leaned down and whispered: “I will speak now.” Then the eyes opened, and a smile faintly flickered at the mouth. “I will speak now,” Soolsby said again into the old man’s ear. CHAPTER XXV. THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR That night Soolsby tapped at the door of the lighted laboratory of the Cloistered House where Lord Eglington was at work; opened it, peered in, and stepped inside. With a glass retort in his hand Eglington faced him. “What’s this--what do you want?” he demanded. “I want to try an experiment,” answered Soolsby grimly. “Ah, a scientific turn!” rejoined Eglington coolly--looking at him narrowly, however. He was conscious of danger of some kind. Then for a minute neither spoke. Now that Soolsby had come to the moment for which he had waited for so many years, the situation was not what he had so often prefigured. The words he had chosen long ago were gone from his memory; in his ignorance of what had been a commonplace to Soolsby’s dark reflection so long, the man he had meant to bring low stood up before him on his own ground, powerful and unabashed. Eglington wore a blue smock, and over his eyes was a green shade to protect them from the light, but they peered sharply out at the chair-maker, and were boldly alive to the unexpected. He was no physical coward, and, in any case, what reason had he for physical fear in the presence of this man weakened by vice and age? Yet ever since he was a boy there had existed between them an antagonism which had shown itself in many ways. There had ever been something sinister in Soolsby’s attitude to his father and himself.