Page:Bobbie, General Manager (1913).djvu/202

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CHAPTER XV

FOUR months later. Twelve o'clock at night. Wrapped up in my eiderdown bath-robe. Sitting at my desk.

It is midnight. I cannot sleep. I have been lying wide awake, listening to a strong April wind, howling around the corner of the house, for two hours! I've repeated the twenty-third Psalm over and over again. I've imagined a flock of sheep going over a stile (though I never saw it done) for ten minutes solid. I've swallowed two Veronal tablets. It's useless. I surrender. I don't want to get up. I shall have an awful headache to-morrow, besides heavy lead weights behind my eyes; and to-morrow—to-morrow of all days—I want to be fresh and bright and as beautiful as nature can make me. Moreover, I'd rather not write. But I can't read. There has never been a book printed that could hold my thoughts to-night. My mind goes back to the events of the day like steel to a magnet. I've tried solitaire, and ended by pushing the silly cards on the floor. You see something has happened—something big and actual and real!

I have seen Dr. Maynard!

I have met him face to face, talked with him, laughed with him, walked with him from Charles Street to the sunken garden, sat with him by the fountain. I am beside myself with excitement. I had better tell how it all happened. If I get it out of my

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