Something about it seemed to fascinate
him, to challenge his presence. Now it was missing from the wall.
He threw off his coat and hat, filled his pipe, and began
gathering up his few possessions, ready for packing. It was noon
before he was through, and Gregson had not returned. He boiled
himself some coffee and sat down to wait. At five o'clock he was
to eat supper with the Brokaws and the factor; Eileen, through her
father, had asked him to join her an hour or two earlier in the
big room. He waited until four, and then left a brief note for
Gregson upon the table.
It was growing dusk in the forest. From the top of the ridge
Philip caught the last red glow of the sun, sinking far to the
south and west. A faint radiance of it still swept over his head
and mingled with the thickening gray gloom of the northern sea.
Across the dip in the Bay the huge, white-capped cliff seemed to
loom nearer and more gigantic in the whimsical light. For a few
moments a red bar shot across it, and as the golden fire faded and
died away Philip could not but think it was like a torch beckoning
to him. A few hours more, and where that light had been he would
see Jeanne. And now, down there, Eileen was waiting for him.
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