The great old house was very still.  Somewhere in a shadowed room an old man slept heavily with his servant sitting stiff and straight beside him, at the head of the stairway a painted bride smiled in the darkness, the dog Muffin stirred and whined.

Derry’s head was buried deep in the cushion.  His hands clutched the letter which had cut the knot of his desperate decision.

No—­one could not break a promise to a mother in Heaven. . . .

He waked heavily in the morning.  Bronson was beside his bed.  “I am sorry to disturb you, sir, but Dr. McKenzie would like to speak to you.”

“McKenzie?”

“Yes, sir.  I had to call him last night.  Your father was worse.”

“Bring him right in here, Bronson, and have some coffee for us.”

When Dr. McKenzie was ushered into Derry’s sitting room, he found a rather pale and languid young man in the long chair.

“I hated to wake you, Drake.  But it was rather necessary that I should talk your father’s case over with you.”

“Is he very ill?”

“It isn’t that—­there are complications that I don’t care to discuss with servants.”

“You mean he has been drinking?”

“Yes.  Heavily.  You realize that’s a rather serious thing for a man of his age.”

“I know it.  But there’s nothing to be done.”

“What makes you say that?”

“We’ve tried specialists—­cures.  I’ve been half around the world with him.”

The Doctor nodded.  “It’s hard to pull up at that age.”

“My mother’s life was spent in trying to help him.  He’s a dear old chap, really.”

“There is, of course, the possibility that he may get a grip on himself.”

Derry’s languor left him.  “Do you think there’s the least hope of it?  Frankly?  No platitudes?”

“We are making some rather interesting experiments—­psycho-analysis—­things like that—­”

He stood up.  He was big and breezy.  “What’s the matter with you this morning?  You ought to be up and out.”

Derry flushed.  “Nothing—­much.”

The Doctor sat down again.  “I’d tell most men to take a cold shower and a two hours’ tramp, but it’s more than that with you—.”

“It’s a ease of suspended activity.  I want to get into the war—­”

“Why don’t you?”

“I can’t leave Dad.  Surely you can see that.”

“I don’t see it.  He must reap, every man must.”

“But there’s more than that.  My mother tied me by a promise.  And people are calling me a coward—­even Dad thinks I am a slacker, and I can’t say to him, ’If you were more than the half of a man I might be a whole one.’”

“Your mother couldn’t have foreseen this war.”

“It would have made no difference.  Her world was centered in him.  You know, of course, Doctor, that I wouldn’t have spoken of this to anyone else—­”

“My dear fellow, I am father confessor to half of my patients.”  The Doctor’s eyes were kind.  “My lips will be sealed.  But if you want my advice I should throw the old man overboard.  Let him sink or swim.  Your life is your own.”