Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/124

 He determined, as the day wore on, to write to Alice. Sitting down before his desk, he tried to compose a letter. It was a difficult matter, he soon discovered, to compose a letter—the first—to a girl with whom he was in love, a girl whom, at the same time, he scarcely knew. Dear Miss Blake, he began; after a moment of perturbed reflection he drew his pen through these words. Dear lady; too formal. Dear friend; how absurd! She might even deny this. Dear stranger; more absurd still. Finally, he decided to begin his letter without any address at all, and now he found that he could write it quite easily.

He gave the letter to Drains to post, but immediately after Drains had departed on this mission, he felt the need of going out himself. A novel restlessness had beseiged him. Drawing on his rain-coat, he left the house. Without being particularly conscious of where he was walking,