Siward nodded back.

Plank was silent.
"Of course," continued Fleetwood, tentatively, "you people need not worry, with Howard Quarrier back of you." Nobody said anything for a while.

Presently Siward's restless hands, moving in search of something, encountered a pencil lying on the table beside him, and he picked it up and began drawing initials and scrolls on the margin of a newspaper; and all the scrolls framed initials, and all the initials were the same, twining and twisting into endless variations of the letters S.L.
"Yes, I must go to the office to-morrow," he repeated absently.

"I am better--in fact I am quite well, except for this sprain." He looked down at his bandaged foot, then his pencil moved listlessly again, continuing the endless variations on the two letters.

It was plain that he was tired.
Fleetwood rose and made his adieux almost affectionately.