Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/198

186 me my own poor will and love for you!' I bent down and kissed her on the lips.

For the first week or so, there was no one in the inn—or, as they called it, the Hôtel du Midi—but we; but a good many people came over from the two adjacent towns of St. Denys and Marny to spend the day, going back by the diligence in the evening. Then two Englishmen, evident 'Varsity men or aspirers thereto, en tour, arrived and stayed for a short time; but, beyond talking with them a little at dinner (what I had taken, by-the-by, for our private sitting-room, turned out to be a public one), we, or rather I, saw nothing of them.

The following, written later, refers to now:

'I had some things to trouble my peace: to write, and more than once, to Mr. Sandford, the solicitor who had informed me of Colonel James' death and of my inheritance of his fortune, and to Strachan touching the Book.

'I scarcely knew what to say to Mr. Sandford. Certainly I was not going to explain to him the cause of my sudden flight, and as certainly I was not going to lie about the matter. In the letter in which he informed me of the burial of Colonel James in Kensal Green, and of the probable cost of a suitable tombstone, etc.; he said that he now regretted, after his long, he might say, personal affection for the deceased, an affection which, etc., and in which, etc., etc., but he must request that I would transfer the conduct of my affairs to, etc., etc., etc.

'I sat frowning over the regular winged writing for a little, with a vague wonder as to the nature of the friendship here alluded to, and sorrow that I had apparently profaned it: then tore the paper across, and threw it on to the table beside me. And Rosy came in with her hat on, ready for a ramble over the reefs now the tide was out; and that was the end of the matter—as regarded the friendship, I mean.

'One afternoon, in a fit of despondency, I sat down and began a letter to Rayne. I am not quite sure whether in my inmost mind I absolutely intended