But his aunt had loved her, so he passed on to the dining-room without deciding what to do.
It was a lonely supper.

He kept his eyes on his plate as well as he could; for whenever he saw the back of her chair, his food choked him.
He wondered why he did not take the decanter of whisky down from the sideboard; a generous tumblerful.

...

No.

This was the first time in months that the desire to drink deeply came to him.