"At supper time," said Matthew and shut the door.
Levis sat down by the table. "Have you any stimulant in the house?"
"God in Heaven, Edward, now that he is here and safe, would you ruin him deliberately? Aren't you satisfied?"
"Have you anything that he can take hot?"
Grandfather rose and opened a cupboard door, his hands trembling.
"I will make durch-wax tea."
"Make it then, or let your acolyte make it." In the midst of his rage Levis was pleased with having found exactly the right word.
"It's very bitter tea," said the old man as he poured hot water upon the dried leaves.
"The bitterer the better," said Levis grimly.
When Matthew appeared from the inner room, there came into his father's white face the expression of amazed and intolerable pain which Ellen had once seen. Matthew was unshaven; the dark shade on his cheek was not put there by the soil of travel, it was a curling beard, which, above Amos's black suit, had a significance not to be ignored. For a single second his father thought that this could not be Matthew, it was Amos. He laid his hand against his side as though his heart ached sensibly.