FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86  
87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   >>   >|  
arently not meant to answer his questions. He wanted to know where he was and had not been told. It looked as if his comrade had been warned not to enlighten him; but there was no reason for this. Above all, he wanted to know who was the girl with the sweet voice and light step. Jake, who had admitted that she might have been in his room, had, no doubt, seen her, and Dick could not understand why he should refuse to speak of her. While he puzzled about it he went to sleep again. It was dark when he awoke, and perhaps he was feverish or his brain was weakened by illness, for it reproduced past scenes that were mysteriously connected with the present. He was in a strange house in Santa Brigida, for he remarked the shadowy creeper on the wall and a pool of moonlight on the dark floor of his room. Yet the cornfields in an English valley, through which he drove his motor bicycle, seemed more real, and he could see the rows of stocked sheaves stretch back from the hedgerows he sped past. Something sinister and threatening awaited him at the end of the journey, but he could not tell what it was. Then the cornfields vanished and he was crossing a quiet, walled garden with a girl at his side. He remembered how the moonlight shone through the branches of a tree and fell in silver, splashes on her white dress. Her face was in the shadow, but he knew it well. After a time he felt thirsty, and moving his head looked feebly about the room. A slender, white figure sat near the wall, and he started, because this must be the girl he had heard singing. "I wonder if you could get me something to drink?" he said. The girl rose and he watched her intently as she came towards him with a glass. When she entered the moonlight his heart gave a sudden throb. "Clare, Miss Kenwardine!" he said, and awkwardly raised himself on his arm. "Yes," she said, "I am Clare Kenwardine. But drink this; then I'll put the pillows straight and you must keep still." Dick drained the glass and lay down again, for he was weaker than he thought. "Thanks! Don't go back into the dark. You have been here all the time? I mean, since I came." "As you were seldom quite conscious until this morning, how did you know?" "I didn't know, in a way, and yet I did. There was somebody about who made me think of England, and then, you see, I heard you sing." "Still," she said, smiling, "I don't quite understand." "Don't you?" said Dick, who felt he must m
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86  
87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
moonlight
 

looked

 

wanted

 
understand
 

cornfields

 
Kenwardine
 

watched

 

intently

 

shadow

 

entered


sudden

 
started
 

figure

 

slender

 

feebly

 

moving

 

thirsty

 

singing

 

conscious

 
morning

seldom

 

smiling

 
England
 

awkwardly

 

raised

 

pillows

 

straight

 
weaker
 

thought

 
Thanks

drained

 

Something

 

feverish

 

puzzled

 
weakened
 

present

 

strange

 
connected
 

mysteriously

 

illness


reproduced

 
scenes
 

refuse

 

comrade

 

warned

 

enlighten

 

arently

 

answer

 

questions

 

reason