"Why don't you drink?
I thought you were going to give me a toast." Hugh's mood changed magically.

He raised his glass high.

"Here's to your eternal welfare, dear fellow! I drink to your heart's desire." Conyers waited till Hugh had drained his glass before he lifted his own.
Then, "I drink to the one woman," he said, and emptied it at a draught.
* * * * * The storm was over, and a horse's feet clattered away into the darkness, mingling rhythmically with a cheery tenor voice.
In the room with the open door a man's figure stood for a long while motionless.
When he moved at length it was to open the locked drawer of the writing-table.

His right hand felt within it, closed upon something that lay there; and then he paused.
Several minutes crawled away.
From afar there came the long rumble of thunder.

But it was not this that he heard as he stood wrestling with the fiercest temptation he had ever known.
Stiffly at last he stooped, peered into the drawer, finally closed it with an unfaltering hand.