Chapter IV––Capitulation
Thus it comes to pass that I go; as I know from the first I shall go, and Sandford knows that I will go; and, most of all, as Mary knows that I will go.
In fact, she is packing for me already; not saying a word, but simply packing; and I––I go out-doors again, sidling into a jog beside the bow-window, to diminish the din of the wind in my ears, listening open-mouthed until––
Yes, there it sounds again; faint, but distinct; mellow, sonorous, vibrant. Honk! honk! honk! and again honk! honk! honk! It wafts downward from some place, up above where the stars should be and are not; up above the artificial illumination of the city; up where there are freedom, and space infinite, and abandon absolute.
With an effort, I force myself back into the house. I take down and oil my old double-barrel, lovingly, and try the locks to see that all is in order. I lay out my wrinkled and 289 battered duck suit handy for the morning, after carefully storing away in an inner pocket, where they will keep dry, the bundle of postcards Mary brings me––first exacting a promise to report on one each day, when I know I shall be five miles from the nearest postoffice, and that I shall bring them all back unused.
And, last of all, I slip to bed, and to dreams of gigantic honkers serene in the blue above; of whirring, whistling wings that cut the air like myriad knife blades; until I wake up with a start at the rattle of the telephone beside my bed, and I know that, though dark as a pit of pitch, it is morning, and that Sandford is already astir. 290