Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/454

 Mr. Bannister's shoulder. He was looking at a wire letter rack, hanging by the superintendent's little office. There were some telegrams and many letters stretched behind the wire netting. One envelope was addressed—

Miss Norah Monogue, The Man at Arms Hotel. Treliss, Cornwall.

“Miss Monogue Miss Monogue  have you any one here called Miss Monogue?”

“Yes, sir—been here some weeks. Poor lady, she's very ill I'm afraid. Something to do with her heart—strained it in some way. Seemed much better but the last few days”

Peter stumbled upstairs to his room.

Some clock was striking five when he awoke and looking vaguely about his room saw, by the light, that it must be late afternoon. He must have slept for a day and a night. As he lay back on his bed his first moments of consciousness were filled with a pleasant sense of rest and ease. He remembered nothing he only knew that in the air there was the breath of flowers and that through the open window there floated up to him a song, a murmur of the sea, a rattle of little carts.

He looked about his room. On a distant wall there was a photograph—“Dunotter Rocks, from the East.” Then he remembered.

He flung the bed-clothes off him and hurried to dress. He must go up to Scaw House at once, at once, at once. Not another moment must be wasted. His hands trembled as he put on his clothes and when he came downstairs he was dishevelled and untidy. He had eaten nothing for many hours but food now would have choked him. He hurried out of the hotel.

The town must have had many recollections to offer him had he observed it but he passed through it, looking neither to the right nor the left, brushing people aside, striding