“Surely, madam—­” he began in a scandalized tone.

“This is Harry Brooks.”  Mrs. Stimcoe introduced me loftily.  “If you wish him to retire, be kind enough to say so, and have done with it.  Our boarders, I may say, have the run of the house—­it is part of Mr. Stimcoe’s system.  But Harry has too much delicacy to remain where he feels himself de trop.  Harry, you have my leave to withdraw.”

I obeyed, aware that the doctor—­who had pushed his spectacles high upon his forehead—­was following my retreat with bewildered gaze.  As I expected, no sooner had I regained the dormitory than my fellow-boarders—­forgetting their sore heads, or, at any rate, forgiving—­began to pester me with a hundred questions.  I had to repeat the punishment on Doggy Bates before they suffered me to lie down in quiet.

But the interlude, in itself discomposing, had composed my nerves for the while.  I expected no sleep; had, indeed, an hour ago, deemed it impossible I should sleep that night.  Yet, in fact, my head was scarcely on the pillow before I slept, and slept like a top.

The town clock awoke me, striking four.  To the far louder sound of Scotty Maclean’s snoring, in the bed next to mine, I was case-hardened.  I lay for a second or two counting the strokes, then sprang out of bed, and, running to the window, drew wide the curtain.  The world was awake, the sun already clear above the hills over St. Just pool, and all the harbour twinkling with its rays.  My eyes searched the stretch of water between me and St. Mawes, as though for flotsam—­anything to give me news, or a hint of news.  For many minutes I stood staring—­needless to say, in vain—­and so, the morning being chilly, crept back to bed with the shivers on me.

Two hours later, in the midst of my dressing, I looked out of the window again, and I saw the St. Mawes packet reaching across towards Falmouth merrily, quite as if nothing had happened.  Yet something—­ I told myself—­must have happened.

The Copenhagen Academy enjoyed a holiday that day, for Captain Branscome failed to present himself, and Mr. Stimcoe lay under the influence of sedatives.  At eleven in the morning he awoke, and began to discuss the character of Talleyrand at the pitch of his voice.  Its echoes reached me where I sat disconsolate in the deserted schoolroom, and I went upstairs to the bedroom door to offer my services.  Doggy Bates, Pilkington, and Scotty Maclean had hied them immediately after breakfast to the harbour, to beg, borrow, or steal a boat and fish for mackerel; and Mrs. Stimcoe, worn out with watching, set down my faithful presence to motives of which I was shamefully innocent.  In point of fact, I had lurked at home because I could not bear company.  I preferred the deserted schoolroom, though Heaven knows what I would not have given for the dull distraction of work—­an hour of Rule of Three with Captain Branscome, or Caesar’s Commentaries with Mr. Stimcoe.  But Mr. Stimcoe lay upstairs chattering, and Captain Branscome appeared to be taking a protracted holiday.  It hardly occurred to me to wonder why.