sorry about something. But he was really very drowsy indeed. And so he fell quietly asleep.
The clock was striking four when he awoke, and before closing his eyes he had noticed that its hands indicated ten minutes to four. So he could not have slept long, if quite long enough to dream of a girl in white, with red roses at her belt, waiting for him on a pierhead in New York harbour.
And he came to smiling a gentle smile that slowly as consciousness cleared gave place to an impatient frown due to the reminder that he was to all intents an outlaw from America, and then by a look of downright bewilderment, due in turn to realization of a minor miracle that had come to pass while he dreamed.
For some few seconds Alan rested as he was, incredulously regarding the rose which had materialized so mysteriously upon the little table at his elbow. He was sure it had not been there when he closed his eyes, and almost as sure that it was not real. What right, indeed, had a red rose to trespass upon the solidly respectable and imaginative precincts of a British club library? Beyond reasonable doubt it was nothing more or less than the figment of a supersentimentalized imagination worked upon by the magic fragrance of the rose garden.
Then of a sudden he sat bolt upright.
In defiance of the injunction that glared at him
