"What do you propose doing now?" Mr. Britton asked of him as they were walking together the evening after his return from camp.
"That is just what I have been asking myself," Darrell replied.
"Without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion?"
"Not as yet."
"What would you wish to do, were you given your choice?"
"What I wish to do, and what I intend to do if possible, is to devote the next few months to the completion of my book. I can now afford to devote my entire time to it, but I could not do the work justice unless amid the right surroundings, and the question is, where to find them. I do not care to remain here, and yet I shrink from going among strangers."
"There is no need of that," Mr. Britton interposed, quickly; after a pause he continued: "You once expressed a desire for a sort of hermit life. I think by this time you have grown sufficiently out of yourself that you could safely live alone with yourself for a while. How would that suit you for three or four months?"
"I should like it above all things," Darrell answered enthusiastically; "it would be just the thing for my work, but where or how could I live in such a manner?"
"I believe I agreed at that time to furnish the hermitage whenever you were ready for it."