They withdrew and the doctor shut the door.  Outside, the Honourable Giles is telling them how seriously he regards the responsibility of the honour thrust upon him by a great party.  But nobody hears him in the wild rumours that fly from mouth to mouth as the hall empties.  Rushing in against the tide outpouring, tall, stern, vigorous, is a young man whom many recognize, whose name is on many lips as they make way for him, who might have saved them if he would.  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.  Austen having gone to the station, Dr. Tredway had received Mr. Flint in the darkened hall, and had promised to telephone to Fairview the verdict of the specialist.  At present Dr. Tredway did not think it wise to inform Hilary of Mr. Flint’s visit—­not, at least, until after the examination.