Don't beep them in suspense, it is simply barbarous .-- Good-bye, and don't hurry back.

I have heaps to amuse me.
I'll not expect you till dinner-time." Thus did it come about that Damaris reposed in a deck chair, under the shade of the great ilex trees, gazing idly at the webs of steamer smoke hanging low in the southern sky, at the long yellow-grey ridge of the Bar between river and sea, and at the cormorants posturing in the hot afternoon sunshine upon the sand.
Truly she was free to send forth her soul upon whatever far fantastic journey she pleased.

But souls are perverse, not to be driven at will, choosing their own times and seasons for travel.

And hers, just now, proved obstinately home-staying--had no wings wherewith to fly, but must needs crawl a-fourfoot, around all manner of inglorious personal matters.
For that skirmish with her ex-governess, though she successfully bridled her tongue and conquered by kindness rather than by smiting, had clouded her inward serenity, not only by its inherent uselessness, but by reminding her indirectly of an occurrence which it was her earnest desire to forget.
Indirectly, mention of her beloved nurse, Sarah Watson--who journeying back from a visit to her native Lancashire, just this time last year, had met death swift and hideous in a railway collision--recalled to Damaris the little scene, of a week ago, with Tom Verity when ho had asked her, in the noonday sunshine out on the Bar, for some explanation of his strange nocturnal experience.

She went hot all over now, with exaggerated childish shame, thinking of it.