The hand slowly unclasped and fell away from the decanter; his head sank forward until his chin rested on his breast; and a sigh, startling to Sweetwater, fell from his lips.

Hexford was right; only one thing could arouse him.
Sweetwater now tried that thing.

He knocked softly on the sick-room door.
This reached the ear oblivious to all else.

Young Cumberland started to his feet; and for a moment Sweetwater saw again the heavy features which, an hour before, had produced such a repulsive effect upon him in the rooms below.

Then the nerveless figure sank again into place, with the same constraint in its lines, and the same dejection.
Sweetwater's hand, lifted in repetition of his knock, hung suspended.