He arranged the tray for her, pouring out her tea, buttering the rolls.  Then he forced himself to eat his supper as usual.  From old candlesticks on the table a silver radiance was shed on the massive silver, on the gem-like glass.  Candelabra on the mantelpiece and the sideboard lighted up the browned oak of the walls.

He left the table at last, giving and hearing a good night.  The servants efficiently ended their duties and put out the lights.  In the front hall lamps were left burning; there were lamps and candles in the library.  He went off to a room on the ground floor in one ell of the house; it was his sitting room, smoking room, the lounging place of his friends.  In one corner stood a large desk, holding old family papers; here also were articles that he himself had lately been engaged on—­topics relating to scientific agriculture, soils, and stock-raising.  It was the road by which some of the country gentlemen who had been his forefathers passed into a larger life of practical affairs—­going into the Legislature of the state or into the Senate; and he had thought of this as a future for himself.  For an hour or two he looked through family papers.

Then he put them aside and squarely faced the meaning of the day.  His thoughts traversed the whole track of Dent’s life—­one straight track upward.  No deviations, no pitfalls there, no rising and falling.  And now early marriage and safety from so many problems; with work and honors and wifely love and children:  work and rest and duty to the end.  Dent had called him into his room that morning after he was dressed for his wedding and had started to thank him for his love and care and guardianship and then had broken down and they had locked their arms around each other, trying not to say what could not be said.

He lived again through that long afternoon with his mother.  What had the whole day been to her and how she had risen to meet with nobility all its sadnesses!  Her smile lived before him; and her eyes, shining with increasing brightness as she dwelt upon things that meant fading sunlight:  she fondling the playthings of his infancy, keeping some of them to be folded away with her at last; touching her bridal dress and speaking her reliance on her sons for sons and daughters; at the close of the long trying day standing at the foot of the staircase white with weariness and pain, but so brave, so sweet, so unconquerable.  He knew that she was not sleeping now, that she was thinking of him, that she had borne everything and would bear everything not only because it was due to herself, but because it was due to him.

He turned out the lights and sat at a window opening upon the night.  The voices of the land came in to him, the voices of the vanished life of its strong men.