Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/156

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144
A CHILD OF THE AGE
144

IV

I

It was four days after this, a Wednesday as I see, that I awoke at about half-past eight in the morning and found that there was a letter with my cup of tea. After a while I summoned up sufficient energy to pull the letter somehow from the table on to the bed, and then must have fallen off into a dose again; for I remember that the writing of the envelope that must have been just under my half-closed eyes, was wound with some other writing in and out of a fantastic sort of a dream-space from which I suddenly started, with the recognition that the letter was Rayne's.

With all my soul in my eyes, I stared at it. A large white glaring envelope with

'B. Leicester, Esq.,
'Glastonbury School, Glastonbury.'

in Rayne's hand, in the middle, the last three words lined through, and below in a thin scrawly hand:

'5, Dunraven Place,
'Piccadilly, London'

These details realised, I took the envelope; ripped it up at the back; produced the thick white folded double sheet inside, and opened it. This is something like what I read:

'22 Balmoral Street, W.

'My dear Bertram,—We are in London for a short time—three or four weeks, before going north to spend the summer at Kirkory, my husband's family seat, or I should say home. I have wondered a little at hearing nothing from

you. You are, at the least, two letters in my debt. I do