Page:Twilight.djvu/326

 through. They will make the pipes for the bath as little obtrusive as possible. The electric wire casings will go behind the ceiling mouldings. They are not really mouldings, but carved wood, fallen to pieces in many places. But I am having them replaced. Margaret, are you listening?"

She had been. But some one had come out of the hotel. Far off as they were she heard that turkey gobble and impedimented speech.

"You can tell Dr. Kennedy that I would not wait any longer. Tell him I have gone straight up to Carbies. I shall see Mrs. Capel."

"The lady from Carbies is here, ma'am; having tea on the terrace, that's her carriage."

Gabriel had not heard, he was so intent on Margaret and his news. The sea was breaking on the shingle, and to that sound, so agreeable to him, he was also listening idly, in the intervals of his talk. The strange voice in the distance escaped him. The familiar impediment was not familiar to him. Margaret was cold in the innermost centre of her unevenly beating heart.

"Are you listening?" he asked her, and the face she turned on him was white through the obscuring veil.

"I am listening, Gabriel."

"I will go down and speak to her," Mrs. Roope was saying to the waiter. "No, you need not go in advance."