'What an extraordinary idea!' said the old lady, in the conciliatory
tone she would have adopted towards a madman whom she found alone
with her in a railway carriage. 'I mean he was very eccentric, wasn't
he?'
'Who shall say, madam? "Bold is the donkey-driver and bold the ka'dee
who dares say what he will believe, what disbelieve, not knowing in
any wise the mind of Allah, not knowing in any wise his own heart and
what it shall some day suffer."'
At the next station the old lady left the carriage and entered
another, and I was left alone.
My intention was to take up my residence at the cottage where
Winifred had lived with her aunt. Indeed, for a few days I did this,
taking with me one of the Welsh peasants with whom I had previously
made friends. But of course a lengthened stay in such a house was
impossible. More than ever now I needed attendance, and good
attendance, for I had passed into a strange state of irritability--I
had no command over my nerves, which were jarred by the most trifling
thing. I went to the hotel at Peri y Gwryd, but there tourists and
visitors made life more intolerable still to a man in my condition.
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