"Mr.
Stephen, sir ?" "Bring that decanter back.

Didn't you hear me tell you just now ?" "Sir ?" "Didn't you hear me ?" "Yes, Mr.Stephen, sir." There was a silence.
"Gumble!" "Sir ?" "Are you going to bring that decanter ?" The old butler bowed, and ambled from the room, and for a long while Siward sat sullenly listening and scoring the edges of the paper with his trembling pencil.

Then the lead broke short, and he flung it from him and pulled the bell.

Wands came this time, a lank, sandy, silent man, grown gray as a rat in the service of the Siwards.

He received his master's orders, and withdrew; and again Siward waited, biting his under lip and tearing bits from the edges of the newspaper with fingers never still; but nobody came with the decanter, and after a while his tense muscles relaxed; something in his very soul seemed to snap, and he sank back in his chair, the hot tears blinding him.
He had got as far as that; moments of self-pity were becoming almost as frequent as scorching intervals of self-contempt.
So they all knew what was the matter with him--they all knew--the doctor, the servants, his friends.