"I'm getting brilliant," she said. "I am beginning to know what I want. I want to go somewhere where there isn't anybody or anything. Isn't there some place where there is just the sea——"
"A voyage?" asked Jack.
"Certainly not; because of submarines and being unwell. I should like the sea to be there, but there mustn't be any bathing-machines, and I should like a great flat place without any hills. The sea and a marsh, and nobody and nothing. Isn't there an empty place anywhere?"
Dr. Ashe listened to this, watching her, with a diagnostic mind.
"Let's hear more about it," he said. "You don't want to be bothered with anybody or anything. Is that it?"
Dodo's right arm lying outside the bedclothes suddenly twitched.
"Who did that?" she said. "Why doesn't it keep still? I've got the jumps, and I want to be quiet. Can't either of you understand?"
"And you want to go somewhere empty and quiet?" asked Jack.
"Yes, I've said so several times. And I don't want to talk any more."
They left her alone again after this, and presently when they returned, it appeared that Jack had once spent a couple of weeks one November at a small Norfolk village near the sea. The object of the expedition had been duck-shooting, but as far as duck went, it had been disappointing, for they usually got up a mile or two away, and flew out to sea in a straight line with the speed of an express train and never came back any more. But apart from duck, the village of Truscombe had promising features as regarded their present requirements, for Jack was not able to recollect any feature of the slightest interest about it. It squatted on the edge of marshes, there was the sea within a mile of it; he supposed there were some inhabitants, for there was a small but extremely comfortable inn. Now in July there would not even be any intending duck-shooters there; it promised to be an apotheosis of nothing at all.