ould. The door of the little room
opens, and he stands before his father, looking down at him. And the
stern expression is gone from his face.

"Austen!" said Mr. Vane.

"Yes, Judge."

"Take me away from here. Take me home--now--to-night."

Austen glanced at Dr. Tredway.

"It is best," said the doctor; "we will take him home--to-night."

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE VOICE OF AN ERA

They took him home, in the stateroom of the sleeper attached to the
night express from the south, although Mr. Flint, by telephone, had put
a special train at his disposal. The long service of Hilary Vane was
over; he had won his last fight for the man he had chosen to call his
master; and those who had fought behind him, whose places, whose very
luminary existences, had depended on his skill, knew that the end had
come; nay, were already speculating, manoeuvring, and taking sides. Who
would be the new Captain-general? Who would be strong enough to suppress
the straining ambitions of the many that the Empire might continue to
flourish in its integrity and gather tribute? It is the world-old cry
around the palace walls: Long live the new ruler--if you can find him
among the curdling factions.

They carried Hilary home that September night, when Sawanec was like a
gray ghost-mountain facing the waning moon, back to the home of
those strange, Renaissance Austens which he had reclaimed for a grim
puritanism, and laid him in the carved and canopied bedstead Channing
Austen had brought from Spain. Euphrasia had met them at the door, but
a trained nurse from the Ripton hospital was likewise in waiting; and a
New York specialist had been summoned to prolong, if possible, the life
of one from whom all desire for life had passed.

Before sunrise a wind came from the northern spruces; the dawn was
cloudless, fiery red, and the air had an autumn sharpness. At ten
o'clock Dr. Harmon arrived, was met at the station by Austen, and spent
half an hour with Dr. Tredway. At noon the examination was complete.
Thanks to generations of self-denial by the Vanes of Camden Street, Mr.
Hilary Vane might live indefinitely, might even recover, partially; but
at present he was condemned to remain, with his memories, in the great
canopied bed.

The Honourable Hilary had had another caller that morning besides Dr.
Harmon,--no less a personage than the president of the Northeastern
Railroads himself, who had driven down from Fairview immediately after
breakfast.