Hope, Anthony, Father Stafford

(London :  Cassell & Co.,  1891.)

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107
 

CHAPTER   VII.

AN  EARLY  TRAIN  AND  A   MORNING's  AMUSEMENT.

It was still early when he awoke, weary, stiff,
and unrefreshed, but with a conviction in his
mind that had grown plain and strong in the
mysterious way notions sometimes seem to
gather force in hours of unconsciousness and
surprise us with their mature vigour when we
awake. "I must go!" he kept muttering to
himself; "I must go—go and think. I dare
do nothing now." He hastily packed a hand¬
bag, wrote a note for Eugene, asking that the
rest of his luggage might be forwarded to an
address he would send, went quietly downstairs,
and, finding the door just opened, passed out
unseen. He had three miles to walk to the
station, but his restless feet brought him there
quickly, and he had more than an hour to wait
for the first train, at half-past eight. He sat
down on the platform and waited. His capacity
for thought and emotion seemed for the time
exhausted. His thoughts wandered from one
trivial matter to another, always eluding his
effort to fix them. He found himself acutely
studying the gang of labourers who were going
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