He felt that they were crowded in an interested, amused group behind him waiting to see what he would do.

Then a little bell rang somewhere in the house, a voice cried "Martha!" He moved forward and pulled the wire of the bell; there was a wheezy jangle, a pause, and then a sharp irritated sound far away in the heart of the house, as though he had hit it in the wind and it protested.

An old woman, very neat (she was certainly a Glebeshire woman), told him that Mr.Trenchard was at home.

She took him through the dark passages into the study that he knew so well, and said that Mr.Trenchard would be with him in a moment.
It was the same study, and yet how different! Many of the old pieces of furniture were there--the deep, worn leather arm-chair in which Mr.
Lasher had been sitting when he had his famous discussion with Mr.
Pidgen, the same bookshelves, the same tiles in the fireplace with Bible pictures painted on them, the same huge black coal-scuttle, the same long, dark writing-table.

But instead of the old order and discipline there was now a confusion that gave the room the air of a waste-paper basket.