VIII

AN OFFER OF HELP

It rained and the light was going when Foster sat in a window seat of
the library at the Garth. He was alone, but did not mind this. The
Featherstones treated him as one of the family; he was free to do what
he liked, and Alice had just gone away, after talking to him for half
an hour. Lighting a cigarette, he mused and looked about.

Outside, the firs rose, black and dripping, above the wet drive.
Between their trunks he saw the river, stained with peat, brawling
among the stones, and the streaks of foam that stretched across a
coffee-colored pool. Then a few boggy fields ran back into the mist
that hung about the hills. A red fire threw a soft glow about the
library. The room was somewhat shabby but spacious. Rows of old books
in stained bindings, which Foster thought nobody read, faded into the
gloom at its other end. It was warm and quiet, and he found it a
comfortable retreat.

He had now been a fortnight at the Garth and did not want to leave.
Featherstone and his wife obviously wished him to stay; he was grateful
for the welcome they had given him, and felt as if he belonged to the
place. What Alice thought was not clear, but she treated him with a
quiet friendliness that he found singularly pleasant. By and by he
began to wonder why Lawrence had not written, particularly as he had
brought away a bag of his. Foster had one like it, and as both had its
owner's initials stamped outside, he imagined the baggage agent had
been deceived by the F when he affixed the check. Lawrence's bag,
however, had his name engraved upon the lock.