"
It was then, as he stood in the doorway, bathed in a shaft of sunlight,
that he was again, with absolute physical consciousness, aware of the
children's presence. He could tell that they were pressing behind him,
staring past him into the room, he could almost hear their whispered
exclamations of delight.
He turned to Mrs. Trenchard as though she must have perceived that he
was not alone. But she had noticed nothing; with another sharp turn of
the wrist she had locked the door.
IV
To-morrow was Christmas Eve: he had promised to spend Christmas with
friends in Somerset. Now he went to the little village post-office and
telegraphed that he was detained; he felt at that moment as though he
would never like to leave Clinton again.
The inn, the "Hearty Cow," was kept by people who were new to
him--"foreigners, from up-country." The fat landlord complained to
Seymour of the slowness of the Clinton people, that they never could be
induced to see things to their own proper advantage. "A dead-alive
place _I_ call it," he said; "but still, mind you," he added, "it's got
a sort of a 'old on one.
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