The faint sweet chorus of glad living things, which alone broke the deep silence of the house, seemed neither to disturb nor interest him.

He sat there like a man turned to stone, his forehead riven by one deep line, his straight firm mouth set close and hard.

His servant, the only living being who had approached him, had set food by his side, which now and then he had mechanically taken.

Changeless as a sphinx, he had sat there in darkness and in light, whilst sunlight had changed to moonlight, and the songs of the birds had given place to the low murmuring of frogs from a lake below the lawns.
At last it seemed that his unnatural fit had passed away.

He stretched out his hand and struck a silver gong which had been left within his reach.