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But now the flashes came and went out instantly, for I was no longer looking down on the ship's decks as then. Well was it that I had seen this before from Quantock heights; for I knew that once again the Danes were landing, and that the peril was close at hand. Then at once I knew the terrible danger of Alswythe, for Matelgar's was the first hall that would be burnt.
I retired to a cottage in Somersetshire at the foot of Quantock, and devoted my thoughts and studies to the foundations of religion and morals. Here I found myself all afloat. Doubts rushed in; broke upon me "from the fountains of the great deep," and fell "from the windows of heaven."
"Well, as I told you in one of my letters," said he, "Mrs Quantock showed signs of being a little off with Christian Science. She had a cold, and though she recited the True Statement of Being just as frequently as before, her cold got no better. But when I saw her on Tuesday last, unless it was Wednesday, no, it couldn't have been Wednesday, so it must have been Tuesday "
"His door is locked", she said; "and yet there's no key in it." "Did you look through the keyhole, Lucia mia?" asked Mrs Quantock, with irrepressible irony. Naturally Lucia disregarded this. "I knocked," she said, "and there was no reply. I said, 'Master, we are waiting, and he didn't answer." Suddenly Georgie spoke, as with the report of a cork flying out of a bottle.
He went softly to the door and downstairs, ordering supper to be ready in an hour, as he had said; then making a feint of returning to the room again, he beckoned to the singer, and together they slipped out of the house by a side door. The sky was now quite clear, and the wheelmarks of the brougham which had borne away Laura's father, Lord Quantock, remained distinctly visible.
"Have you heard from the Princess lately?" he asked. Robert's head went round with the same alacrity as he had turned it away. "Oh, yes," said she. "Two days ago was it, Robert?" "I heard yesterday," said Robert firmly. Mrs Quantock looked at her husband with an eager encouraging earnestness. "So you did!" she said. 'I'm getting jealous. Interesting, dear?"
"He told me I had a clean white soul." "Yes; but that is his attitude towards everybody," said Mrs Quantock. "His religion makes it impossible for him to think ill of anybody." "But he didn't say that to Rush," cried Georgie, "when he asked for some brandy, to be put down to you." Mrs Quantock's expression changed for a moment, but that moment was too short for Georgie to notice it.
Everyone was there except Lucia, and she, but for the accident of her being further off than Mrs Quantock, would have been the first to know. When this tour was finished Georgie sat to enjoy the warm comforting glow of envy that surrounded him.
His parting with her was quite formal, but that he did not mind, for her colour rose decidedly higher as he approached, and the light in her eyes was like the ray of a diamond. When he reached the door he found that his brougham from the Quantock Arms, which had been waiting more than an hour, could not be heard of.
These rooms, so Mrs Quantock thrillingly noticed, were dimly lit by oil lamps that stood in front of shrines containing images of the great spiritual guides from Moses down to Madame Blavatski, a smell of incense hung about, there were vases of flowers on the tables, and strange caskets set with winking stones.
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