Page:Quiller-Couch - Noughts and Crosses.djvu/132

120 There was a blank silence, and then the matron hurried up, took him firmly in her arms, and carried him out.

"Don't go—oh, for the Lord A'mighty's sake, don't go!"

And as he was borne down the passages his cry sounded among the audience like the wail of a little lost soul.

The matron carried Kit to the sick-room and put him to bed. After quieting the child a bit she left him, taking away the candle. Now the sick-room was on the ground floor, and Kit lay still a very short while. Then he got out of bed, groped for his clothes, managed to dress himself, and, opening the window, escaped on to the quiet lawn. Then he turned his face southwest, towards home and the sea—and ran.

How could he tell where they lay? God knows. Ask the swallow how she can tell, when in autumn the warm south is a fire in her brain. I believe that the sea's breath was in the face of this child of seven, and its scent in his nostrils, and its voice in his ears, calling, summoning all the way. I only know that he ran