Later on, he lay for long
awake, watching the twin lights flash out across the Channel and
listening to the melancholy call of the owls as they swept back and
forth across the lawn to their secret abodes in the cliffs. When at
last he slept, however, he slept soundly. An unlooked-for gleam of
sunshine and the dull roar of the incoming tide breaking upon the beach
below woke him the next morning long after his usual hour. He bathed,
shaved in front of the open window, and breakfasted with an absolute
renewal of his fuller interest in life. It was not until he had sent
back the car in which he had driven as far as the station, and was
swinging on foot across Woolhanger Moor, that he realised fully why he
had come, why he had schemed for these two days out of a life packed
with multifarious tasks. Then he laughed at himself, heartily yet a
little self-consciously. A fool's errand might yet be a pleasant one,
even though his immediate surroundings seemed to mock the sound of his
mirth. Woolhanger Moor in November was a drear enough sight. There
were many patches of black mud and stagnant water, carpets of
treacherous-looking green moss, bare clumps of bushes bent all one way
by the northwest wind, masses of rock, gaunter and sterner now that
their summer covering of creeping shrubs and bracken had lost their
foliage.
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